A young Irish lad transplanted to rural Middle America upholds the dancing traditions of Ireland in an unusual manner after being taunted by his freind.
A Colleen In Clover
by Deela Eon
"Gee, that's a stupid idea, carrot top!!" scoffed Paul atop his farm's log fence with me. "None's gonna make a St. Patrick's Day parade in Four Clovers 'cause there ain't any Irish here--'cept you 'n your folks! There's just Poles n' Czechs 'round here!"
"Americans don't mind celebrating St. Pat's in stores!" I retorted sourly to my eighth-grade American schoolmate and neighbor.
"Sure, the sales are great! Look Jerry, it just ain't gonna happen! Why should we wear green when we grow enough of it?"
Being Dublin born I was naturally slighted by Paul's assertion, as soberingly truthful as it was.
I was just past 12 when my father, an agriculture specialist outside Londonderry, was reassigned by his company to South Dakota in America, to set up a branch office in the county seat of Mitchell. There, in a newspaper Dad spotted a farm foreclosure whose asking price 'was an offer I could not refuse', as he put it, and we new age Irish homesteaders moved twenty miles to, ironically enough, the tiny farming depot of Four Clovers. If Ireland was a land of rolling green heather then Four Clovers South Dakota was a flat infinity of gold when wheat and oats and other cereals were in flower.
The vastness of the land took my breath away while the excitement made me yawn. The only thing that broke the boredom were long fast school buses to the county school and holidays. I did exceedingly well at grammar school thanks to Ireland's higher standards as well as my demanding father and mother, and that proficiency extended to extracurricular activities like 4-H and Boy Scouts and charities.
While I was ever surprised by the nonchalance and unflappable candor of Americans, they somehow seemed just as intrigued by me, calling me chivalrous and charming no less, but they were most fascinated by my 'choirboy brogue', which strangely made me the giggling focus of many female classmates. This attention didn't go unnoticed by my budding pubescent instincts what my first wet dreams and soon finding myself simultaneously enthralled and sheepish of my tightening underwear in the company of tickled American lasses.
Were such arousals confined to them it would've been dandy for my composure, however, I soon experienced a spillover of sorts occurring whenever winning a school race or a Scouts' archery contest or any triumphed activity drew me a crowd of compliments and congratulations, when all my excitement and flattery stroked my vanity enough to 'set me off' as it were. It's said that for some people just making speeches or jogging or singing gospel gave them a 'rush,' so I suppose being the center of attention was mine.
Otherwise I adapted pretty well to America, with my nearest peer being Paul Pavlis who was two years older and forty pounds stockier and lived almost a mile away, and who showed me some fishing holes and caves and how to wrestle greased swine and other fun rural diversions. Because he didn't share my penchant for reading and dramas, we were drawn together mostly from the longing to relate to a peer once a while rather than true friendship. It seemed my reputation as a boring nerd was following me even here.
Here. A community named Four Clovers yet not one Irish eye smiling!
"I say, if you're going to have a holy day on the calendar, then you should celebrate it!" I staunchly told Paul.
"Sure, then go right ahead and dance in Four Clovers square and see who'd care!"
That really stiffened my backbone. "Well, perhaps I just might do that! Show the farmers around her that St. Pat's is more than just a fast sale day!"
"How ya gonna do that, carrot top?"
"Well--I'm a member of the Celtic folk dance club back home in Dublin and I think I can show you folks a taste or two of Ireland."
"Dancing? You mean that Irish tap dancing stuff you see on TV?"
"There're called step-dancing and slip jigs among some."
"Yea, that's pretty cool. We see films about that in school. It's cool. You know all that?"
"I've been dancing since I was four. I've won many awards."
"Let me see," he dubiously said.
"You really need something harder than dirt to dance on."
"Just show me a little, that's all."
I sighed and dropped from the fence and assumed the start stance then beat my toes into the dusty earth. My passion caught up with me to trample weaving shallow grooves in the dirt before throwing in a few high kicks that ended my breathless passion.
"Wow, that was neat!" Paul said. "How you able to stomp so machine gun fast like that?"
"Practice," I said, somewhat smugly of a sip of flattery for the day. "So, you think if I did a presentation here people would like it?"
"If you mean dance in Four Clovers square..." he shrugged his shoulders.
"What's that mean?"
"Well, you dance great and stuff, but I don't think too many people are gonna turn out to see a guy doing sissy dances."
I bridled, "Sissy dance?! Clans and soldiers have been dancing it a thousand years old! Older than your bloody country here!"
"Hey, easy, easy! I'm only telling you what guys think whenever we see them Irish siss--er, guys on TV dancing like that. Now it's a lot different when Irish girls do it."
"What difference does that make? It's the same dance!" I retorted and he slyly chuckled.
"Because when girls dance it's just--just cuter that's all. The nice way they look and the way their skirts fly up whenever they kick high with their nice long legs. I bet if they danced in Four Clovers you'd get lots of guys and people coming out to see them!"
"But not for guys, right?" I sourly said to his shrug, feeling worst because I sensed much of what he said was true. "It's not fair."
"Well, maybe you should've been born a 'Irish lassie,' carrot top!" he wistfully japed to my smirk.
Nevertheless I took my proposal to mom.
"That's very civic of you, Jerry. It'd be nice to put on a little show in the spirit of the day, but don't expect a crowd like your folk dance exhibitions do back home."
"Why?"
"Well, this is America, and traditional folk dancing's not exactly tops in their faves. You have to be a very special young man to draw a crowd for what's an eclectic dance to them."
You're saying what Paul said is right about the girls?"
"To a point. Unfortunately, in America it's almost acceptable to be titillated by very young girls, like child starlets acting grownup and that sad JonBenet mess. Tis a sick appeal but it's there."
"Still, son--" father added gamely "--I'll back you up two hundred percent if you'd really like to cast a piece of the green in this county."
"Thanks, father," I wearily sighed, going to bed utterly crestfallen. Admittedly not all of my passion was civic-minded though it didn't make my desire any less sincere, still there was a lot of incentive in that public players receive lots of delicious 'stroking' from their flattering audience...
Then it hit me.
Or rather Paul's wild quip.
***
At breakfast I dropped mother my idea. She was amused and enchanted. Father blurted in his coffee. "You want to what??"
"It'd fetch me a bigger crowd to dance to and learn about the real Ireland and St. Patrick's Day, father. It's not like I've never folk danced in public before, right?"
"But prancing as a--a lassie??"
"It's not like I'm trying to be one -- just pass for one in my kilt!"
"What difference does that make?"
"Dad, most Americans don't know Irish wear kilts too besides for the the Scots! That's why it'll work! They already think it's sissy for a guy to wear kilts and that no guy here would dare wear one, so they'll just assume that I'm a girl in a fancy dress!"
Father scratched his cheek, obviously unenthused. "And you just -- thought this idea up!"
"Oh come now, Duncan!" Mom chafed, "It's not like he's putting on a dress!"
"Tis the idea of it! Passing for a lass! Doesn't the lad have any self-esteem?"
"Dad, it's not like I really want to, but if it gets me and St. Pat's more attention out here why not? You always say the world would be better place if everyone knew about another's cultures."
"Well, at least it's a pragmatic reason," mom wryly jabbed father in a funny way and snickered back.
"Jerry--" father began semi-enthused, "Tis a noble thing you're wanting to do, son, but don't you think that that's wee bit--dishonest? Lying on behalf of a saint?"
"It's not lying, father, it's -- spreading the word!"
"Perhaps...but if folks around here find out who you really are, you'll never live down the teases and jokes from the locals."
"Father, the locals hardly see me except when you drive to town for Mr. Harder's supplies. All my school friends and scouts are in Mitchell. The only ones around here who really knows me up close is Paul's family and I'll be on the lookout for them! So who's going to tell them I'm a guy?"
Father nearly twitched his mustache off at that. "Jerry, don't you feel a wee funny about pretending to be a lass?"
"What pretend? I don't have to do anything to let people think so!"
"What do you mean?" he asked, quizzically asked and I bit my lip at my mindless blurt because in explaining it I'd be swallowing denial and a battered male ego with no little bitter sauce.
"Dad...I know I don't look like Brad Pitt. I've been overhearing people -- even family -- saying I look like Velvet Brown with a crew cut ever since second grade -- and it was rough even back then!!"
Mother ruefully nodded even as Dad blushed at my sober alluding to the star of the old 'National Velvet' film. "True, kids can be so cruel."
"Forget the kids! You know how many times stupid substitute teachers since first grade kept shoving me on the bathroom line with the girls? Point is, I don't have to anything but show up in my kilt and dance and just let people think what I am while I'm entertaining them!"
Father grumbled, dubious as he was deeply concerned of my "manly reputation. "Still can't see why you can't simply do it as a boy!"
"Me too, dad, but Paul said it himself; watching girls dance brings more guys out than guys! Besides if I could coax more guys out to see a girl dance the first time, the word will get around and more people will come see next year when I won't have to pass as a girl."
"Perfect business sense, Duncan." Mom remarked.
Father smirked back, "Maureen--"
"Well, I think his logic's true and his heart pure, Duncan. You've a strapping son there, and I deeply doubt that doing the Lord's work promoting a saint is going to corrupt his virility any."
"Tis like what Shakespeare said, father; 'the play's the thing, not the players.'"
Father grumbled if a cause lost. "Oh, what's the use? Just hope the neighbors don't catch any of this or the bowling club will be laughing me out of town! Oh, go do it -- but if you're caught, I knew nothing!"
"Thanks dad!" I gave him a quick hug and he sighed to mom.
"Saints be praised! No one's going to tell who he really is, Maureen, right?"
"Of course, with a wig he'll be even more convincing!" mom quipped and Father grumbled.
"Oh, I think I can fix him up some," she slyly smiled " -- and I think I've finally a project to keep that nagging local quilting bee off my back!"
"What do you mean?" Father and I quizzically chorused.
"Why your dance costume, of course!"
"But I already have a kilt!"
"I'm talking about 'her' costume, dear."
"'Her'?? Who her??" I asked with sudden foreboding. "But I told you how I'm going to--"
"Really, Jerry O'Rourke! You didn't expect to just go prancing out front a street of people in a boy's costume with your hair clipped like a boy when you're supposed to be convincing them you're a lass??"
The pit of my stomach fell at her sly devious grin and I turned to Dad for help and only got an almost smug smile expecting me to drop my intentions like a hot potato, which in a weird way would've been even more unmanly doing.
"What -- do you plan on doing, Mom?"
"Preserving your manly reputation -- and your father's honor -- from any sissy taint by giving your audience what they expect to see."
"Huh??"
"Now, have you also conjured up a colleen's name for your pretty posing?"
"Name??"
"Yes, like Kerry or Erin or Aislynn or Bonnie--"
"But those are girls' names!"
"Of course -- to match your 'act,' right? Unless you plan on announcing yours to all those farm folk!"
"Oh, yea. That's right..." I muttered with great misgivings and noticing dad looking at me with a tacit hope that I'd back out tempered by my commitment to follow through with a open promise
A man's word was supposed to be stronger than any muscle or steel.
"Huh, I -- I guess Aislynn's a nice name," I conceded without really being picky. Mother beamed.
"A pretty pick to be sure! Let's say, Aislynn Derry, shall we?"
"And remember--" father put in like it was critical; "If anyone asks where 'Aislynn' came from, just say that she's your Dublin cousin come visiting us a day to honor our county with her dance. No mingling with folks or even shaking hands! In and out, understand?"
I nodded, puzzled by father's apprehensions. I mean all I'd have to was show up, dance a few folk routines and say something historical about St. Pat's and leave, but somewhat things seemed a lot more complicated to him.
The local quilting bee dropped that weekend and this time Mom had a sly semi-civic project to titillate them with besides another Girl Scout cookie drive, and after studying Celtic albums and books they got to work on my -- "Aislynn's" -- costume with admirable devotion, even if they weren't Irish. A day after mom announced it to the two-page local newspaper, we bought the next day's issue where on the front page was a banner "Celebrate St. Patrick's Day with the Emerald Isle's own Aislynn Derry as she performs traditional Irish dance in Four Clovers Square."
I nearly fell off my chair.
"They want to know more about Aislynn's exhibition, Mom said after a phone call from the paper.
"Exhibition? It's just a bloodly jig!" father exclaimed with funny tenseness.
"Well, it seems that Jerry's got some coattails jumping on; three home schooling groups want to sing Irish ballads and the local feed company wants to sponsor a barbershop quartet."
Father gulped. "Quartet?? Ballads? Look, are you sure you want to do this, lad??" he asked again, badly trying not to sound discouraging.
"It's not that I want to, father, I have to. I want to show everyone that there's a reason for St. Pat's. Besides, I made a bet with Paul."
"A bet's only worthy a sweepstakes, son!"
***
St. Patrick's Day arrived and my parents drove my nervousness to nearby Four Clovers, which was hardly more than a slightly more modern version of a one-street wild west town in those cowboy movies.
Only nervousness muting my petrified male ego's chagrin being snugly enveloped in it, I sat our car's rear seat wearing white gloves folded upon the pleated skirt of a snug heather-green velvet dress with elaborate embroidery and shawls and waist tassels. Mom's proud quilting bee had outdone itself fashioning me an authentic folk dance costume worthy any at my dance club home. The patterns came straight from Celtic lore and scrolls and the ruffled lace on the collar, cuffs and hem flounce were real, well, Irish lace of course. Its fluted skirt was actually a culotte to -- supposedly -- make me and my qualms feel like I was wearing a boy's flared shorts more than a skirt, but from the outside you sure couldn't tell the difference from a skirt!
It took over two hours prepping me in the morning, starting after a deep bath when Mom faced me in my bathrobe with a package of super sheer beige pantyhose. As a dancer I was no stranger to tights but not pantyhose, which was a whole other animal not intended for a stage.
"What do I need those for?" I warily asked Mom, who smiled.
"To better shape and sleek out your legs, of course. These are super- sheer so it'll hardly seem like you're wearing pantyhose but just natural sleek girl legs. You eye them at school enough to know what I'm talking about!"
I blushed and grumbled. "Yea, but I didn't expect wearing any!"
She simply sniggered and had me pull on the hosiery in the bathroom, though I confess it felt a lot different from wearing colored woolen tights, seeing how your legs suddenly looked and felt satiny slick and blemishlessly sleek. But my fascination was cut short by another shock --
"Panties??" I gushed at mom, nearly about to throw in the towel at the sight of the ruffled mint-green undies. "No way!!"
"You'll be kicking your heels high before an audience, half of whom are rude and lewd enough to peer up your slips and ruffles to catch a peek at your undies, Jerry. Do you want them wondering what boys' briefs are doing flashing up there??"
I muttered and fumed but admitted she was right, though my chagrin was mollified a little in the bathroom by the eerily pleasing way the satin garment slipped up my legs and hugged my waist, though that felt strange and awesome, it was upstaged by my bodice's padded modest mounds --
"To accent Aislynn's blossoming, dear!" Mom asserted with glee, and despite my balking male ego my cultivated fine art sense appreciated the craftsmanship the local seamstresses created in the costume's graceful lines and lacework and by itself it was easily worth several thousand pounds back home as a genuine traditional folk dance garment. Anyway, accenting a girls' figure wasn't all bad if it'd help conceal the truth within. Faking small boobs was a little embarrassing, but then so were skirts and pantyhose. In addition I wore the standard frilly white anklets and patent leather dance slippers from a bee member's trunk that were worked with new treaded patterns and taps and satiny ankle ribbons.
Holding a trouper's stiff upper lip, I was really starting to regret my decision when mother brought in her Avon and Maybelline arsenal and began attacking my face with creams and dusting powders.
I balked; "Mom -- do I really need all this??"
"Just think of it as a mask to muddle the boy's face underneath -- unless you'd rather try to fake a girl's face on your own..."
I smirked and grudgingly declined to her "recommendation" and endured tiny brushes licking my eyelashes and dark thick pencils tracing my eyebrows and coral sticks running my lips with a waxy slick coating. When mom finally produced and draped a fluffy mane of lush raven curls over my short fair locks, father looked like he was going to spit with dismay.
"Be hanged if he doesn't look that girl!!" he effused with equal parts awe and dismay, and knowing the 'girl' he meant only further piqued me to shun any mirrors to preserve my whittled male self-esteem, even though curiosity was nagging me like Lot's wife. Father quickly recomposed and looked a little nonplused as though trying to figure out whether to compliment or sympathize before giving me a somehow uncomfortable meager smile and a pat on the shoulder.
"Don't fret, son. Be over in an hour." he said as though to a warrior son about to endure some lethal ritual gauntlet.
"Actually I'm a little excited, father!" I blurted, not meaning for my less than altruistic hopes to slip out.
We were astonished by what met us on Main Street.
There were dozens of people mingling around, almost all wearing various greens and some kids running around in leprechaun Halloween costumes and even a volunteer fire truck draped with sheets tucked as bunting and flourishes just like for a pageant queen's float. It even had 'Aislynn Derry' painted on one of the sheets.
I was aghast. "All for me??"
"That's America!" chimed mother.
With great skittish I slided out our car to be greeted by mayor Bradley who was also Sheriff and Postmaster and Dog Catcher and who helped me up on the fire truck for a short parade of the tiny town to wave back to several scores of beaming people flaunting outlandish four leaf clovers and green socks and even a green-dyed dog. The attention and welcome and genuine regard literally swept away my consternation and self-consciousness of being spotted as a guy in disguise. I mean if they couldn't tell on first and second sight by now...
"I didn't know you celebrated St. Pat's like this!" I said in awe.
"We don't, little lady! First time!" Mayor Bradley exclaimed; "It's kinda like that 'Stone Soup' story, you know? When they heard that a real Irish lass from Ireland was coming to dance in the square, everyone in hooting distance decided to come to throw in their own potpourri! Hey, it beats watching wheat grow!"
Leon's General store cleared their wide wooden porch as a stage for me and I walked up and announced myself then gave a brief history of St. Patrick's Day then to the Irish songs from mom's tape recorder, I did a rendition of step-dancing and slip jigs while the onlookers clapped along. Taking a cue from other exhibitions my troupe did, I invited kids to come front to emulate my slow high kicks and tap stepping and everyone had fun. I didn't even mind the somehow lewd way several older boys and some men were grinning whenever my skirt flounced high with my kicks and peering through. It was naughty of them, yet there was something deliciously flattering in their gawks and ogling as it rushed waves of delicious warmth through me and tingled deep my flouncy skirt...
O Lordy!...
Happily I was distracted from further excitement when knots of dancers morphed into a free for all country square dance Irish-style up and down the street to the hoots and claps of onlookers then a local radio station van raced up and the spiffy reporter began to interview me and I wished I rehearsed Aislynn's bogus history better. I was uneasy about making up stories to begin with, and as I struggled through a smile I spotted with a gasping jolt a face in the excited onlookers.
Oh no!
Paul!
Few locals knew my true face up close better than Paul, and suddenly I was terrified that my wig and makeup and outfit just wouldn't be near enough to fool him to not give me away. Perhaps more, I simply didn't want to be a boy caught dead looking like this before a junior macho American boy.
I turned my back towards Paul to complete my interview then managed to slip into the general store which was happily playing to an impromptu crowd, and after a bit of stealthy footwork found my way out the back and slipped for my family's car--
A head popped up behind the car just as I reached the door.
My heart jumped.
Paul!
"Hi!" he called.
"H--Hi," I answered, anxiously keeping my face pitched down, wondering just how to explain this breech of fledgling machohood.
"Yea, well, I just wanna say that you're one spiffy hoofer, Aislynn!"
"Uh, I -- uh??" I blinked aback.
Aislynn??
He was dead front of me and couldn't tell??
Maybe -- maybe if I didn't give him any time to notice anything familiar --
"Hoofer? Oh--er, yes, dancer. Er, thank you,." I replied in a soft voice as low was my head at my velvet suede toes as my beating dread heard him come around the car and I was nervous as hell.
"So you're Jerry's cousin, huh? Wow! Sure do look a little like him!"
"Er, like you your father too I'm sure."
"Except you're prettier."
I blushed. "I'm sure your mother is too."
"Aren't you staying around?"
"No, I--I have to pack for the airport. I--fly tonight."
"Shucks. I would've liked to've shown you around, you know? The new fishing hole, the salt marsh, even the Miller place that burnt down."
"I--I'm sure it's all very interesting. Er, sorry I'll miss it."
"Me too," he said, and eerily I felt eyes scanning me all over.
"Green eyes, black hair and skin light as fresh cream."
My male ego winced. "Pardon?"
"Well, most the kids 'round here look like they were born in wheat fields, you know, blonde 'n fair 'n all? You're a nice change for looking pretty. A real nice change!"
Swamping my male ego's instinctive snicker a giggle escaped me.
O Lordy! For a girl-less dork he sure flatters well!...
My tickled vanity coaxed me to recklessly look up and he smiled at me. "Yea, you're even prettier up close!"
I timidly smiled as a titillated swell of tingly warm rushed me again, swirling and congealing deep my skirt. "I--I thank you very much."
"You sure look a lot like Jerry, that's for sure! You could be more his twin sister than a cousin."
With a gasp I shied my face. "A--lot of people say that."
"I tease Jerry a lot, but he's a nice guy. His voice knocks me out, just like yours--'cept yours' a little higher and your legs way nicer."
I blushed over a stifled smirk. "Girls generally do."
"Hey, there lassie!!"
We spun as Mr. Harder tramped out of his general store towards us and my heart sank. Of all the stores from whom I carried out supplies for father, it had to be him! "Hello there, little lady -- er, lassie,
right?"
"Er, yes sir."
"I see you're one pretty popular missy today! We're gonna miss you when you fly home." He frowned with an amused smile. "Goodness, you sure do look like your cousin. Down to the freckles!"
"Er, he's got more, sir,"
"I wouldn't know about that. I've a photographic memory; couldn't run my store without one, you know? And your face -- declare, except for that hair and your--youthful figure, I could swear that you're--"
"Er, Mr. Harder--" Paul injected "--I just saw Jerry a minute ago on the hay cart ride."
"You did? I gotta go then! I've got some Cokes to shake some thirst! Well, nice meeting you pretty Miss!"
"Er, thank you sir." I meekly said, my glove shaking his hand before he strode off. There was a heavy pregnant silence when I felt almost dazed with chagrin. It's a boy's worst nightmare being caught in girls' clothes by other guys you see a lot and know you, and though I'd a legitimate excuse I was sure I'd be suffering heaps of ribbing and teasing for centuries to come.
"I...thank you," I meekly said, waiting for the blow of my name.
"You're welcome," Paul said and again there was a taut quiet between us and I could feel my mildly mounded bodice pound.
"You know, it's too bad Jerry really doesn't have a twin sister like you," Paul continued, sounding like he was thinking on the way. "I mean, it'd be so cool, like you always being around here, you know?"
"Uh--"
"I don't mean here -- I mean out our farms back home. I kinda wish Jerry had a sister like you I could talk to. Someone pretty to sit next to and watch the sun go down and shooting stars and to talk with. I mean, Jerry's nice and all, but someone like you would be even neater."
Blushing again, I nibbled my lower lip.
Could I really STILL be fooling him??
"Don't you -- talk with your sister?" I asked and he shrugged.
"Sure, in a way, but she's mostly interested in giggling with her friends over boys and dresses and stuff, you know? Besides, it's not the same because you want a girl who you can call your friend, even past brothers or pals, you know?"
"Uh...I -- dunno."
"I mean, it'd be perfect if Jerry had a twin sister a lot like you, you know?" he said in an odd wistful way that captured my eyes like a soft vice. "I mean it'd be so neat, Aislynn, if he had a sister who's a clone of you-- who's just like you. It'd be so awesome different having three of us together having fun, talking..."
He gave a funny pause then gazed me even deeper, more wistfully, almost like a plea. "I like Jerry a lot, I mean he's a great guy and he's no kinda sissy, but I sometimes wish that he sleepwalked as a girl, you know?"
That startled me. "No! I -- I mean, you do??"
"Yea, whenever there's a full moon when everything's almost light as dawn, and when he sleepwalks he climbs out his window and goes to the Salvation Army clothes bin on the road to pick out cool girls' stuff to wear -- not jeans and sneakers like all do, but real nice frilly girly stuff, you know? Then comes back to the fence on the far road where we can talk about -- all kinds of stuff that I can't talk with Jerry about."
"What kind of stuff??" I suddenly deeply wanted to know but he only gave one of those shy sly smiles.
"Just -- stuff. Stuff I wish I could tell a swell dude friend like Jerry but only if he was a girl."
"But -- what difference does that make? Aren't we -- you two best friends?"
"Sure we are...but things are getting different now, and there're things you notice more than guys now, like cars and football and -- chicks..."
He seemed a little abashed slipping that out, as I was hearing it but I kept still. "You know, girls. They used to be stupid things to me, but now they're so awesome to look at, to listen to. One day, I'm gonna ask one to the movies, like Joyce Schaffer."
Joyce Schaffer?? I barely stifled my smirk at his adoration of our junior high's most precociously endowed giggly thirteen-year-old bunny, even though she had my tongue wagging out too.
"So why don't you?" I asked like a veiled dare, awed by this admission, this side of Paul.
"Naw...still -- too scared of girls I guess."
"You're talking with me, aren't you?" I quipped, taking myself aback at how I suddenly assumed the role of his concern. Then I was really feeling werid all over somehow, like I was enjoying fooling my best friend so right in his face and seeing him being to shy and humble yet bold and cocky. It was like peeking on another side of him kept from me.
"Yea, you're so much like Jerry it's easy. That's why I wish he'd a twin sister just like you to know fresh all over again. To treat -- like you can't treat another guy else it'd look too -- too --"
"Queer?" I put in, sounding innocent of its American meaning.
"Yea, kinda..." he said rather sheepishly then looked at me as though for the first time all over again then shook his head in awe. "Oh man, you're so pretty! You look exactly like that girl in National Velvet!"
"I do??" It was a stupid wondrous blurt that made my eyes mindlessly flicker forward to the rearview mirror and startled, I gasped because it was startlingly true, seeing a beautiful tween actress gawking back where my face should've been. Granted, over my life I grudgingly noticed a vague resemblance in our bathroom mirrors and storefront reflection, but Mom's magic had enhanced and pulled out that ghostly girl into startling clarity.
No wonder dad swore so awkwardly after seeing Mom's handiwork.
Geeze! This wasn't doing my male self-esteem worth a shit, seeing the knockout chick I made. No wonder men and boys were gawking me so.
Like Paul. Now I understood his attention to me. Such hopeless attention wishing on a lie. I felt like a heel. I was also feeling something else growing wild in me, like blind feedback spellbound at Velvet gawking back in my mirror, with wet-shiny coral lips partly agape and wide violet eyes fringed by feathery lashes on a creamy perfect child-star face.
"Aislynn? Aislynn!" I heard familiar voices jolting me from my wild spell as Mom and Dad came up and into the car. "Time to go, dear --er, Aislynn. Oh, Hi Paul!"
"Hi, Mrs. O'Rourke. Just telling Aislynn how great she looks and dances. I really feel bad that she's leaving."
"You and me both," mother said with a funny sigh my way, and I hurriedly slid into the back seat, hoping something normally experienced in my bedroom over father's hidden Playboys didn't poke obvious as my clasped gloves perched my skirted lap's deep secret swell while Paul leaned into my car window.
"Aislynn, I really like Jerry, even though I tease him a lot. He's a great guy and my very best pal!"
I averted my eyes. "Thank you -- I mean, I--I'm glad."
"And he's got one neat pretty cousin I'm really gonna miss," he professed, the twinkle of his grinning regard further rousing a warm delicious swell deep my skirt stroking me silly while balling into a tight throbbing knot.
Oh Lordy!
Then I gasped as Paul impulsively lunged to peck my cheek with his lips! -- and like a pricked soap bubble, triggered something inside me and my lap that seized me like an electric silk vice tingling me all over--
O Gosh--!!
--Squeezing the knot deep my lap tight, tighter, breathlessly tight, hazing out th world and all sound and even thought then suddenly a sweet muffled pop' like a hundred wet wistful dreams over a dozen centerfolds bursting all at once in a deep long sigh, and I was suddenly a limp balloon, lazily falling down from the edge of space like a swirling whirling thistledown...
Ohhhhh...!
"Aislynn? Aislynn?..."
Mom??
Was that mom calling from my sweet foggy haze?
In a swimmy daze, I groped to break the surface of a daydream and my new long eyelashes fluttered open to the light to see mom frowning at me with puzzled concern back over the front seat while Paul peered down through the door window above me as though -- as though I was slumped over the back couch on my side!
With a sheepish smile I sat erect on the rear seat and mindlessly as it was cute, pushed away a lush raven curtain veiling one side of my face. "Uh, I -- I just -- slipped. Sorry."
"That's alright," Paul said with a wink and wave. "Bye, Aislynn!"
I sheepishly waved back, trying to ignore that somewhere snug and hidden I was very clammy damp.
But it also felt so -- strangely naughtily delightful!
"I think you made an impression on Paul!" Mom chuckled as my panting breath and bewilderment sheepishly groped erect and rather dizzily I waved back to Paul as father pulled off. "But really,Jerry, don't you think that swooning's a wee bit overacting??"
***
I startled Paul behind his quiet perch on the back road's old log fence in the balmy twilight as my slightly scuffed used brown penny loafers and powder lime ankle socks climbed up even as my muddled male ego's misgivings cruelly mocked my off-the-wall dare and longing.
Lo! Why am I really doing this? Am I just - crazy??
"O wow!..." Paul breathed aloud while gawking my sidle beside him as I prissily draped and spread my paisley green jumper's skirt over my lime tights' huddled knees then I faced him and brushed a stray raven tress from my cheek and forced a smile over my nervousness, knowing that if I read his flippant banter wrong that I'd never live this down.
"Hi," I breathed over an anxious shyness in the sweetest softest rip of junior high bunny voices, just like their gestures and moves too. I shoved from my mind that it was such a super-sissy thing to do, just like sneaking into musty Salvation Army bins to try on girls' shoes and dresses.
"Uh, hi!" he said with a funny curious shy smile not of humor but an almost wonder and intrigue that lifted my self-confidence.
"I'm Erin. Aislynn's twin -- but any name you give me's fine."
"Uh -- Erin'?? Oh, er -- er, uh, Erin's okay I guess," Paul nearly sputtered, as though unsure to try a surprise new bike or whether I was putting him on. Was I?
I swallowed and looked out the flat horizon. "It -- was such a pretty sunset that--I thought I'd slip out and see it with a friend -- a new friend, then maybe watch some shooting stars and -- maybe just talk about mysterious things you'll never tell my brother!" I teased to drown anxiety, praying I didn't sound more sissy than fem.
"Brother??" Paul quizzically blurted before my firm hinting stare finally sank in. "Brother? Oh -- him! Er, sure. I mean, there's some stuff that guys can't talk to guys about because it's stuff you only tell -- uh, girls, you know?"
"Well, I hope you can tell me!" I lightly chaffed, impulsively brushing back a long raven tress rushing my cheek as though demurely emphasizing my 'Velvet Brown' likeness, even sensing a weird sly smugness in the feminine motion and recalling its effect upon me in the car's rearview mirror and projecting how it must affect him in turn. Just like it was faintly stirring now deep my skirt.
"Heck, I'll tell you stuff till the cows come home -- and the goats too!" he japed like a virgin bragging a suaveness never earned or tried, and at that moment almost giddy relief swept me because I knew I wouldn't be mocked or derided posing this way because reality was suspended where Jerry was just a third party and Erin was Paul's fancy come true. He wasn't quite sure exactly who or what 'Erin' was; a jesting role-play character, a female multiple personality, or even Jerry sleepwalking out a wild crossdressing fantasy, but he knew it was the start of a game he wistfully suggested in town and wildly hoped I'd bite.
But then I was still grappling with the reasons I did.
"Good. I'm so glad to hear that, Paul," I sweetly said, the feedback of his shy smile pumping my confidence and secret sir. "But you're never going to talk about 'carrot top' whenever we're together or ever, right?"
"Talk? Er, no, no, not if you don't want."
"I don't. I hope we could be different best friends just between us, Paul. Not anyone else. Not our brothers or other friends, only us, right?"
"Er, sure!" Paul said, and again I caught him sneaking glances at the rounded huddled knees peeking out the edge of my skirt and at the mild twin mounds padding out my bodice. I barely reined back a giddy giggle of victory at that because it meant he not only didn't see me as Jerry in drag but not even a boy, which was a weird alien comprehension that wafted me a warm fuzzy feeling of smug coy self-esteem.
"Oh -- and don't mention me to anyone else, especially 'him', alright? The friendship you have with him's still the same in every way, but just never ever mention me, alright?"
"Uh, sure."
"Because if you do or it ever slips out, it'll be like you prickled a soap bubble and made it pop and I can't come back any more with you."
He sat erect with concern. "Huh? Oh shit. I mean -- no, I won't say anything to nobody! No way! Promise!"
"Good. I really want to start off being new friends the right way, Paul. Like you said, it's better than sitting here watching corn grow, right?"
"Sure! You said it!" he gushed with a chuckle and I felt a breathless giddy rush when his eyes flickered at my knees again and with school locker room banter awareness I knew he wished to rest his palm there like junior jock brag doing. My balking male ego wasn't sure whether I should oblige my tickled flattery yet if ever, still his desire shot a delicious wonder through me of Paul regarding me so boldly.
His grinning eyes bounced off my bodice's mild mounds which heaved with my flattered breath. Yes, his straying eyes were definitely feeding my stir!
"I -- I know I don't look pretty as I did this afternoon, " I demurely apologized, again teasing back my raven locks and feeling not a little sly and impish in my mock vanity. "It's going to take a while for me to learn to be better like I was. Hope you don't mind?"
"Mind??" he sputtered like half a cackle of victory as though picturing me again as glamourised as Aislynn was earlier. "No, it's okay! I mean you're perfect! Awesome! Really, Erin. More than really," he asserted even as he quietly squirmed in a funny way which sent a thrilled giggle escaping me as tingles of flattery rushed my spine and balled into a delicious warm knot deep my skirt.
Just like I knew was happening deep his denim lap.
Giggle!
And maybe that was the driver of my bold being here. Sharing another's secret erotic feedback on a new level deeper than mere friendship. I wasn't exactly sure whether I was a kind of sensual vampire feeding off my best friend's flattery or whether I was stroking a deeper thrill of being someone completely different who could temporarily toss Jerry's life script to the wind. I only knew that things were way different between us now, that early evenings would never be the same anymore. Admitting you're very pretty all dolled up was big male ego hump to get over, but once on top i could see what other boys and men saw today and it was an awesome revelation in more ways than one. I sensed in my lady-looks more than just comely attraction, but a draw that was almost strong as magnetic force and if I learned to use it like a child learns to use a knife and fork, in a sneaky was I could make a boy sit up and beg...
Awesome!
Paul smiled at me in the waning twilight like Romeo conjuring up some tales to spin a newfound Juliet and that image tickled my sly flattered imagination wild, like maybe one starry twilight Paul might evolve into a commanding suave jock overwhelming my demureness and maybe reach to touch my hand or even brashly caress my knee or sneak his arm around my waist and draw me closer and maybe even startle and stun my stubborn male ego as his face eclipses the moon and stars lowering over mine.
But for now just talking close was titillating enough.
FIN
***
Filed 06/20/2004 at Fictionmania as my "A Pal Too Nice". Only title has been (belatedly) changed.
I knew there were lots of reasons far beyond standard politeness why I shouldn't be peeking up Julie-Ann Foster's skirt so, but being captivated dismissed such annoying things. Besides, I was pretty sure she knew my transgressions by the slight tug at the corner of her full pearly lips whenever I had the feeling of my sneaky glances getting caught. Indeed, I was certain that she even basked in it with the same smug thrill I felt when other junior jocks spotted me with my coy beige bunny. I felt like a white knight with his damsel, especially since most the chicks our junior high couldn't hold a candle to her. Though mixed Julie-Ann was technically Negro, her caramel-hued features were more Nordic than most white girls at school, kind of like a pretty preteen Sydney "O.J" Simpson. I loved the delicate contrast of her yellow socks and canary blouse against her creamy beige skin even more than were she white, and what was just as cool was that she behaved and acted exactly like a prissy well-mannered white girl, but I didn't let mention that because I didn't know how she'd take it though I doubted she'd be offended. Julie-Ann simply wasn't hung-up with the race game pigeonhole dictating her demeanor and tastes, even if her femininity was a little quaint though sincere.
I heard the chimes of the ice cream cart. With a cute motion brushing back several stray honey tendrils of her 'Alice In Wonderland' hairdo from a rosy cheek, Julie-Ann looked up with an innocent face of shy suggestions.
"Like a cone?" I promptly asked like a poodle jumping a hoop.
She tittered like her big sparkling hazel eyes. "Oh Peter, would you?? You're so kind!" she chimed with that soft, cute, breathy Southern belle voice.
I liked how her nice sleek legginess cranked erect on her brown penny loafers which skipped alongside me over to the ice cream vendor.
"A strawberry waffle cone with all the sprinkles - and a gumdrop cherry on top!" I ordered the man with a wink at Julie-Ann's coy smile and as her pink tongue tortured her cone I felt a swell of pride. We sat on a park bench and my eyes once so often slyly raided her exposed taut lower thighs and knees and the cute little-girl way her lemon-clad ankles crossed under her bench.
"This is so neat, being out here!" Julie-Ann declared with giddy gratitude. "Way way better than sneaking my backyard!"
"Told you you'd nothing to worry about!" I said, clucking at my prize and victory. "We can go all kinds of places, like down the river or the movies or the mall or just hang out."
"Oh, but I'm scared too! Being around so many people!"
"So what? I'll be there too," I stated, feeling like a knight escort to a princess damsel who looked at me with sparkling gratitude then shied around if unsure how to express her appreciation, but instead the cheerful princess drained from her face as she caught sight of a boy obviously being picked on by junior high bullies. The expression not just of appall but meek horror in her face tweaked some kind of outrage in me that her happiness was being so violated, so I jumped up and sauntered down the grass to the trio.
"Hey, leave him alone!" I scolded the bigger jerks who snickered.
"Says who?"
"Says a guy who whipped the shit outta half my karate class and got a karate tournament to go to this Saturday!" I barked and the two bullies exchanged suddenly reconsidering looks.
"Butt out, this ain't nothing to do with you!" one snapped.
"I'm making it my business! If I hear from my cousin that you two are pestering him again I'm gonna turn you two into carpets! Now you gonna walk or they gonna carry you out??" I challenged and for a moment they did a macho bravado defiance step forward then shrugged and gave the kid a smirk and walked off.
"Thanks," the kid almost stammered, as though barely believing his luck. "You're not really my cousin, are you?"
"No, but they don't know that, so they're not gonna pick on you again," I assured and he nodded and ran off, and as I watched him I felt a funny smug swell in my chest, and it would've been totally sweet and deserving hadn't I glimpsed back at the two creeps and guiltily saw how familiar their swagger was. I turned to march back toward Julie-Ann under the tree; the wild crazy reason for my rehabilitation.
Yes, it was crazy that I could change so much for such an insanely sick reason, but I'd been on Cloud Nine ever since discovering Julie-Ann, and for once all I'd been getting since were good guiltless feelings free of derision and scorn. When I should've felt the least macho I instead felt like John Wayne and Rambo rolled into one. Maybe because, like a deer stunned in a car's headlights, it was so damn easy to forget real things.
The expression on Julie-Ann's face. You can't describe it, it looked so movie star awesome, her hazel eyes so wide and dewy sparkling looking up at me like she was gawking me all aglow in wonder and praise, almost like a princess rescued by a knight. That face made my year because I also knew I didn't just now score big in only her heart because I sensed behind her fawning gaze a glint of sated vengeance which made me feel awkwardly sorry and angry to see.
"Oh Peter! You're so - so wonderful - !!" she cried, her voice choked with near-excitement and admiration, and apparently was so caught up in it that she couldn't help it as her pearly lips suddenly dipped forward to peck my startled hot cheek.
My heart and fly thumped.
Oh wow!!
"You're the neatest kindest friend I ever had, Peter! Ever!" Julie-Ann unabashedly asserted and muting a chest thump of thunder I beamed.
"And you're the - nicest!" I avowed and she giggled, feathery eyelashes shyly fluttering aside. "I wanted to beat the snot outta those jerks, but why spoil a nice day, huh?"
"I wouldn't have minded," she answered in a soft almost wistful voice that took me aback with dismay.
"I thought you didn't like me fighting or - stuff," I clipped that off because it delved a past that wouldn't do now. Her pouf short sleeves lightly shrugged.
"I used to wish someone would come save me all the time," she voiced if aloud to herself and I felt sorry and angry that someone who dare hit on her so brutally.
"I know, Julie-Ann. But if I hadn't met you, I would've still been picking on shrimps and nerds too," I contritely admitted with equal sincerity and she kind of nodded as though ever slightly disappointed that I hadn't thrashed those guys then lifted dewy contrite eyes.
"If you were ever that bad you wouldn't be here by me," she stated like a fact or challenge.
"Well, I was, till you turned me around."
"I didn't mean to."
"Well, you did, way more than I ever dreamed of," I said and she shyly turned, mulling the park for a too long minute. "What you thinking of? Com'on, what?"
She demurely shrugged but kept looking away. "I...I was just thinking, how scared I was when you first came into my backyard while I was dancing! I thought my dad came home early or it was a burglar!" she admitted, gazing me with fond gratitude. "I thought I was safe and hidden behind our fence, that no one would ever see me slip out to play after school till my parents came home."
I chuckled. "Well, it's a good thing I heard you singing too loud that day or I never would've peeked up your driveway."
"Yes, the wrong time!" she teased like a terrible moment gone later turned sweet.
I shrugged. "So you were sneaking - er, borrowing clothes off the neighbor's clothesline. Not like you were stealing nothing."
"I meant catching me changing, silly!"
I paused, reluctant to recollect that reality reminder, even though Julie-Ann's incongruous sight was kinda magical in its own way. "Well, you were too nice to squeal on or tease or shit. Besides you were so happy, I didn't want to spoil it. I'm sorry I scared you, but I just had to come in and say how pretty you looked and how nice you sang, whatever."
She blushed and shyly looked away a moment. "I feel like a princess rescued from a dungeon," she said, facing me fondly. "I'll never forget this, Peter. Ever."
"Well, that's sure a long time being - friends, huh?" I joked, in a way wishing it was just a title more but skittish about pushing our status. Julie-Ann giggled and licked her creamy cone and my chest swelled two sizes like the new tingly sensations in my fly.
Damn! I'm so glad I didn't tell, even though that's likely why she's friends with me, like she owes me or something. But I can tell she's really happy being out with someone else knows now instead of being herself all shut in her room all alone. That would've been such a waste! And look what I would've missed! A year or two of trying to summon up the guts to ask some eighth-grade babe to be my friend - probably moments before some junior high jock steals her! But no one's going to steal Julie-Ann away from me! She's my secret alone even if they all don't even know it!
Smug, I glanced around for any drooling dudes and saw a gaggle of older junior high girls strolling along a nearby lane, their nice plump sweaters and blouses bouncing and jiggling. They caught sight of me ogling their plump upswept gifts and giggled.
"Peter!" Julie-Ann snapped as though peeved or annoyed with me before a sweet sly grin crossed her face. "Wanna see something nice?"
"Nice? Like what?"
"You'll see!" she giggled. "Take off your socks."
"My what??"
"Do it!" her giggle urged, and bemused and kicked off my sneakers and rolled off my socks.
"They're a little smelly -"
"They smell like flowers to me!" she tittered, "Now turn around!"
"Why?"
"Just do it - and don't turn back till I tell you!"
"Okay, okay!" I breathed, doing as I was told and only hearing the faint rustle of fabric rolling another for a minute or so. I spotted a guy with a dog far off who suddenly seemed to perk up and stare our way as though seeing something startling behind me.
"Don't turn!!"
"Alright, alright!" I muttered, impatiently waiting.
"Okay, turn!" Julie-Ann called and I turned then blinked aback, noticing below her shy coy smile the new modest mounds gracing her jumper's bodice.
"Oh wow!" I had to chuckle at Julie-Ann's new development. "You look - look like from ninth grade!" I sputtered to her coy titter.
"It doesn't look funny, does it?" she shyly asked with prissy vanity. "I don't have any training bra."
"Looks okay. Nancy might've left some in her bottom drawer too when she left for college, so I'll bring it tomorrow."
"Oh, you're so neat, Peter!" Julie-Ann gushed, and I beamed and clucked as I noticed some passing junior jocks giving Julie-Ann double takes.
"In fact, I got an idea. Let's cruise the mall Saturday, okay?"
"You really want to?"
"Yeah. I'll ride you there on my bike!"
"Way cool!"
"In fact, next week my Boy Scout friend Larry's having a party. Like to come?"
She perked, "A party? Sure - but, I got nothing to wear."
"Don't worry. Nancy's closet's got lots more old stuff I can give you to keep for good since she's in college now!"
"Like that lacy peach party dress?" Julie-Ann added with an envious eye. "That'll go with those suede black pumps so nice!"
"You got it! Anything you want!" I promised her beaming face.
Yeah, I was looking forward to that! Driving a beige bunny wrapped in fluffy peach pastels perched my bike's center rail between my steering arms, her sleek ivory-filmed legs dangling with nice ankles and dress pumps crossed like a coy mannered lady.
And all the guys we pass gawking like cows at a highway! Wishing they were me, so lucky with a beige babe on the sly!
Yeah!
A wild thought flinging back to the dudes in my locker room came to mind, all their wild unsubstantiated boasts of screwing cheerleaders and class bimbettes in back stairwells and shit. Just being thirteen I didn't really have all the dirty stud details, but I gathered enough from ninth-grade jocks about chicks to envisage what having sex was like and what you did, and while it was almost fanciful in concept, the curiosity was like a pounding bated breath in me. Only a couple months ago I was having wet dreams over booby blonde Joyce Shaeffer; no mechanical details, just movie-gleaned moves and ideas, and lately I was having the same about Julie-Ann. I felt kinda uneasy about that because she came across like an innocent wholesome farmer's daughter, not some junior high bimbette strutting her boobs and navel, but now Julie-Ann seemed to be flirting the same way with this chest change.
Was she trying to tell me something? I mean, I respected her and stuff, but if she was trying to entice me like other chicks...
Fuck, don't say you never dreamed it, guy! Sure, Julie-Ann's nice and sweet and all, but supposed she signaled me that it was okay to move on her, really move on her, like some of my class chicklettes at my buddies at school? Well...why not? Sure, I wasn't any James Bond expert with chicks or even sat closer to a girl than with Nancy in a car, but if Julie-Ann really wanted to mess around...
My eyes strayed at her knees. Those wonderfully becoming and enchanting knees and the modest peek of sleek adjoining thigh. All guys naturally wonder what mysteries and delights lie in anticipation far up beyond those huddled limbs, and my wet dreams of late were no exception despite her innocent image. To my senses and budding libido, there was no difference between Julie-Ann Foster and Joyce Shaeffer...
Having real sex with Julie-Ann!
Wonder what that'd be like!
Maybe some bigoted purist macho corner of my mind liked crashing parties, but a hard reminder abruptly speared my exotic whimsy; 'No, she ain't like Joyce way up them nice legs, fairy dude! What you gonna do about that, huh?'
"What are you thinking of?" a sweet voice intruded to break my daze to sheepishly shy my stare at her knees, though she was too polite to admonish me about that if she sensed my captivation and reason. I smiled at Julie-Ann's awesome face.
No. Maybe she's - different in a way I shouldn't have to know or bother with for a long time, like in high school, but for now it doesn't matter squat. Just being together and looking her and way she stirs me crazy is enough for now. How we'll mess around in the future could wait.
I was about to conjure up a lame reply when a distant school horn sounded. "Five o'clock already!" Julie-Ann ruefully sighed. "Why can't our folks work overtime all the time?"
"Don't worry. I'll be getting up real early Saturday for the whole day!" I declared and promised and bubbly over, Julie-Ann leaned to peck my cheek and quickly got up while I was still stunned.
Wow!
I followed Julie-Ann's cute leggy sashay and swaying skirt to the park's bordering hedges at its barely trafficked corner and watched her disappear behind the shrubbery and I turned my back and looked innocent in keeping lookout and after ten minutes I heard the bushes rustle and my sinking heart turned to see a scrawny eighth-grade beige-skinned guy in baggy jeans and a hip-hop sweater and sneakers and short black woolly hair emerge, hauling out a duffel bag which I jumped to grab.
"I'll get that, Julian," I said like a privileged caddy.
"Thanks," Julie-Ann's twin brother softly said, looking at me with shy fondness as though denying and amnesic of the last two hours. I sighed over a grumble.
Julian was okay for a hang-around pal, but way too mousy for sports or hanging around my other junior jock buddies. I secretly hoped that some day God would make him go away so I could have Julie-Ann all to myself forever to show off to my friends and just to spend idle time gawking at on the soft grass of a quiet park.
Yeah, that'd be so neat!
You'll never know what cute truths you'll discover on April Fool's Day.
April's Fool
By Deela Eon
I parked myself on a secluded corner bench in the bus station's
waiting room while mom went on the ticket line to convince them that I
was eligible for the special Easter under-twelve half-fare even though
I was really ten months over when I spotted the budding babe of my
new wet dreams at the soda machine.
My eager green junior high jock glands perked.
I liked seeing girls all dolled-up up fancy. It was a cute change
from them looking like any dude in scruffy sneakers and tight or baggy
jeans and lumpy shirts and hair belonging on the end of a soggy mop,
and she was as nice as dreams came, all Easter time elegant with white
dress gloves and a ribboned roll-brim straw bonnet spilling a flaxen
blonde pageboy coif curling around a surely pretty face and tumbling
over the lacy Peter Pan collar of a nautical powder blue dress with a
nicely mounded bodice and full white accordion skirt which amply
flaunted nice pink-filmed knees and slender calves and well-turned
ankles planted in eggshell-white patent leather skimmer pumps with cute
bows near the toes.
She was one seventh or eighth grade bunny and a half.
Wow!
I was even more excited when she started strolling my way while
busy into her little white bible, my awe and chest pounding ever harder
as she approached and primly spread her skirt before perching the bench
opposite me and crossing her slender pink legginess at that canted angle
only classy women and models do while leafing through that little white
bible matching her purse.
Awesome!
Stealing glimpses between decoy looks around the dull station, I
saw that my guess that she pretty was more than correct. If you've seen
how those subteen and "tween" girls modeling fancy Easter outfits in
clothes catalogs look, she was just like that--plus!
Boy, for once I was glad I was all spiffed up in my slicked-back
hair and double-breasted suit and buffed brown lace shoes!
My eyes were sneakily caressing her top's modest hills and nicely
rounded knees and feeding my quiet seeping squirm when she suddenly
switched her legs, affording glimpses of sleek thigh beneath her skirt.
I had to shift my own seat because it was getting too tight to pant.
Jeezus!
She did that twice again and each time she did I tried peering as
far when her pretty face suddenly looked up right at me.
I blushed a stormed.
Her pale coral-glossed lips smiled. "That okay, I don't mind," she
said in a soft sweet drawl, jarring me even as she went back to reading
her bible.
My jaw fell on the floor.
Doesn't mind??
How do you answer that?
By denying it of course!
"Er, I--I was just going to--to ask what you're reading?"
Her smile seemed to savor and knowingly passed my lie. "Just a
sermon. Where are you going?"
"Er, to spend Easter at grandma's. You?"
She lightly shrugged. "Oh, just hanging around."
"Bus stations?"
"It's fun here!" she chimed in a funny game way. "Train stations
too, and Little League games and video arcades. Anywhere there're lots
of boys!"
I chuckled because she seemed so modest saying it. "Well, I bet you
don't have any problem getting any boyfriends!"
She giggled. "Mom says I'm too young to have any, besides I don't
really need any to feel fun with them."
"What do you mean?"
She only smiled as she slightly cocked her head and petted the bell
of lush hair piling on one shoulder. "Do you really think I'm pretty?"
I gulped. "Er, yea. Very pretty."
Her beaming face basked in that and I was startled numb as she
moved over and actually sat next to me.
Oh man!
If only my junior high locker room crew got a peek at this!!!
"Thank you. And you're real handsome too."
My hot blush felt like badge of smug machohood. "Gee...thanks!"
"You're welcome," she perkily said with a coy flutter of feathery
pale eyelashes. "I'm April."
I sat up proudly. "Er. I'm Greg Carter. You live around here?"
"In Elwood."
"So you go to Grant Junior High, right?"
"No, Lincoln because it's better," she replied, startling me.
"Lincoln? I go to Lincoln!"
"Isn't that rad??"
"Yea--but I don't remember ever seeing you there!"
"Well, I am," she coyly said with an unnerving coral-glossed smile.
I shook my head's racked brains. "Man! I'd remember seeing someone
like you in school!!"
"Maybe it's because you don't see me dolled-up like this, though I
think wearing jeans and sneakers and sweatshirts kind of lame."
"You like dressing up?" I asked and was startled by her girlish
squeal of elation as she stretched back like a yawn except her clasped
knit gloves were shoving down between her skirt.
"Oh, I just love dolling up! Feeling soft and cuddly all over like
regular clothes can't."
"Er, I like getting dressed up too!" I professed to score some
brownie points with an apparently classy chick. She demurely
smiled.
"Well, I do all the time, not even just for Easter and Christmas or
birthdays but every chance I get!"
"Wow. That's neat. I kinda wish more girls looked more like you all
the time instead of tomboys, you know?"
She tittered. "If they did I wouldn't be having so much fun!"
"What do you mean?"
"Because boys wouldn't be so attracted at how different I look and
that'd cut down all my feel-back!"
"'Feel-back'?" I asked and she coyly smiled and stretched again.
"See...it feels so nice when I know I'm making someone feel the
same way I do."
"Er, what do you mean?"
"Well, weren't you feeling all warm and tingly staring at me
before?" she coyly asked and I chuckled at her nonchalant candy candor.
"Well, kinda..."
"And weren't your underpants getting tight, like right now too?"
she innocently issued to my surprise and speechless blush. "It's okay.
See, my panties feel the same way."
Boy, she sure was immodest in her modesty! I had to snicker some at
that comment though. "I don't think so, April."
"Why not?"
"Because--you know, I'm a guy and you're a girl."
"No."
"No what?"
"You're a guy and I'm a guy."
"Huh? Oh, I know girls call themselves guys sometimes, but I meant
you're a girl."
"No. I'm a guy, just like you."
"Like me? What do you mean??"
Her pretty blue eyes rolled. "Oh, gee, so clueless! A boy, silly!!"
"A boy??"
"Yes."
I blinked at her straight pretty face and weird humor. "Right."
"It's true," she said, putting a glove on her bible, so it must've
been serious--and true.
I shook my head. "Naw, no way you're a guy! You're prettier most
the girls in eighth grade!"
"Thank you, but it's true."
I scoffed but her steady pale feathery-lashed blue eyes didn't
have that coy tinkle of a tease and that was awesome. "Com'on, April!
You just can't be a boy! If you're a boy, then why you're all dressed up
like this?"
She(?) rolled her pretty eyes. "Well, for two reasons."
"What?"
"Well, first you get such an awesome tingly rush up your back
putting girls clothes on and feeling crinkly soft things brush against
your skin... Do you have a sister, Greg?"
"Er, sure, Kyra."
"Have you ever put Kyra's things on?"
"No way!"
"Scared?"
"No! 'Cause--because I'm a guy!"
"So am I."
"Any guy who puts girls stuff on is a--a sissy!" I reminded, and
quickly salvaged "--but you're not a sissy because you're a girl!"
"Guys call me sissy in school if they happen to notice me, but it
doesn't bother me anymore," April said with a shrug of pouf-sleeved
shoulders and a sly smug smile. "See, I could make jocks and bullies
squirm themselves soggy ogling me a lot if I want to, just like you
were before. I'm pretty well damp myself now. How about you?"
I tried to act cool through my blush. "You get your kicks off
making guys--like you?"
"Oh, not just them! It's also awesome feeling-back how they feel
too!'Tween that and dolling up's like a double whammy feeling awesome
and nice! Oh, you can feel-up the same way in front of a mirror gawking
yourself, but making other boys squirm and gawk you's hundred times
better than your best wet dream!"
Jeese!
A pretty proper-looking southern girl talking like that!
"I didn't even know girls had--them," I said as nonchalantly as I
could. "I still don't believe you're any boy either, April. Any boy as
pretty as you sure would 'catch it' in the gym locker room and bullies
outside!"
"I just stay low and quiet so they won't notice me. I'm a nerd at
school anyway so they don't even bother looking close at me. Besides,
I'm using lots of makeup and things to look so pretty different."
I wrung the cobwebs from my skull.
It was hard to believe that this lissome looker was really some
invisible boy-nerd in my own school! Impossible was more like it.
"You dress-up up like that all by yourself?"
"Well, I watched mom and sister dressing up before she went to
college. She used to do pageants and sometimes I helped her doll-up."
"Suppose your folks caught you like that?"
"Dad ran away long long ago and momma doesn't care, especially
since my sister's gone I can carry on winning her pageants--"
"You do pageants too??"
"Oh, I've won a couple, which is kind of awesome when you beat
pretty girls at their own game, you know? That's how I found out about
feeling-back; a couple of junior high jocks in the front row audience
were ogling me while I was sitting for my turn to stroll on stage, and
every time I crossed my knees or stared a smile at them they'd squirm so
much that they almost fell off their seats--and ever better was they
left stains on the cushions!" she said with a smug giggle.
I shook my head.
No--No--No Way!!
"Come-on, April! You're putting me on! No guy can win girl
pageants or dress-up that good! You're just teasing a storm!"
Her cute button nose twitched in a simper as though I was a hard
nut case. "Then would you like to see 'it' in the bathroom then?" she
challenged to my shock.
"What?"
"My peter."
"You don't have any peter, April! No way you do!"
"'Fraidy cat."
"Not afraid! Besides, you know I can't go in any girls' bathroom!"
"We can go in the boys then."
"You can't do that!"
"Then you'll just have to talk my word for it."
"Look April, first you say you're in my school when I don't
remember you, then you say you're a guy--a real guy and you can't prove
it. You're very pretty, but I think you tease too much."
April looked at me with a sly hunter look then she stood up with
her back to the rest of the station area and startled me by, for a few
seconds, hiking the front of her skirt high as her tights' waistband
then quickly dropped it and primly spread it as she sat down again next
to my jolt of a daze just as Mom sauntered over and beside me with a
pleased grin.
"Well, Greg, I see you've made a lovely friend! Hello!"
April bobbed a pert curtsy, "Ma'am."
Mom tittered and they made small talk while my daze took stock of
my comely companion, even innocently moving off to wildly try to peek up
between April's lacy hem and nice welded knees to confirm any lasting
proof of my stunning glimpse.
The P.A. announced our bus and April followed us to our bus and I
waited for mom to board
"You really stuffed something else in your tights, right??" I
desperately gushed but April's coy coral smile only pecked my lips a soft
press where something firm and wet briefly tickled my teeth and rushed me
with an awesome breathlessness squeezing my toes and gelling my knees.
O Jeeeeezus!!!!
Wow!!
If April was really a guy--a boy-guy--then my macho brains were
thoroughly twisted triple but good!
"You're almost pretty, Greg; try it," she sweetly urged. "You'll
see I'm telling the truth."
I heard mom call and I almost tripped climbing into the bus as I eased
upon the window seat next to mom. "Such a pleasant ladylike young belle,
Greg!" mom's said wistfully. "I hope you meet someone like that!"
"Uh, yea," I murmured, looking out the window at April smiling back
like a Easter-prim girlfriend bading her soldier boyfriend goodbye, and
even as my muddled mind gawked her I felt a weird feeling at the sly
twinkle of her eyes as though they smugly knew that, like heaven knows
how many others, I'd been infected with fatal wonder.
In a way I was kind of lucky.
I imagined April's coy game scrambled the budding sex lives of a
lot of junior jocks and left them ever confused and wary of any date, but
I wouldn't suffer such tormenting doubts, thank goodness.
So here I am at 2:45 PM behind my locked bedroom door before my
closet door's full mirror with my former apprehension and sheepishness
long wafted to stunning affirmation, I beheld the shag-tressed tomboy in
Kyra's mint velvet party dress drawing its lacy hem high above
surprisingly awesome nylon-filmed legs and the tights' crotch where a
familiar trembling budge echoed my feel-back's warm delicious hazy throb.
FIN'ED
The sequel-continuation of Thomas the Tame's "Book of Changes" where ruthless businessman and delinquent father Alex gets his comeuppance when his cunning ex-wife uses his heirloom book of magic against him by stamping out his memory in the body of the pretty little girl which he assumed to steal it back from her possession. Now grown as Alex's ex-wife's teen temptress daughter, Miranda wants to permanently erase what lingering memories of her male past with a new spell so they'll no longer bother a girl who just wants to have fun.
FOREWORD:
Greetings All!
I very seldom dabble in magic stories, but this one long ago caught my fancy. It's a story shoehorn-composed in a very tight and harried life, so pardon any errors which I'll rewrite if too many find them blatant. This story begins immediately after the last line in Thomas the Tame's "The Book of Changes". I thank Thomas the Tame for permission to continue his story. This upload's been nip and tucked for corrections from the one on Fictionmania. It's not proof perfect, but I'll do whenever I've the time. Thanks for understanding.
Dee
But what really tore it was last week when they suddenly made me puke all over him while rocking impaled atop his bucking hips.
Like, why should I put up with that??
So that's why I dug the book out and ordered the ingredients from herbal and occult supplies web sites and batched up this concoction a few nights ago. I would've taken it right then but held off till I was sure Google's Latin translator translated the right spell from the Book. It shouldn't hurt since like, it won't be shriveling bones and crunching organs down to size like when Alex first turned into little me.
So I'll just go ahead and take the concoction out which smells god-awful, but after this, like there'll be no more nightmares, no more lotions, and no more ruined joy rolling with a boy.
Won't Mom be surprised that I could master the Book all by myself?
So I'll just wrap up this diary letter as the last one before my new life free from the ghost of Mom's old hung-up hubby begins.
And afterward we both can have a real laugh over it.
Swirling up from sudden nothingness.
Christ!!!!....
My head was exploding.
It felt like my brain was on the electric chair with sparks arcing between every neuron, and in back of the pain flashed visions of my body writhing and convulsing on the floor. But it was fading, and like the foamy surf rolling back from a wet beach I felt sudden quiet and relief and...and...
I blinked awake a weird swirly confusion like I was assaulted by all manner of different thoughts of surprise at once. Dazed, I staggered off the floor and dropped on my bed, my bosom heaving as I wheezed as though from a race. I looked around my bedroom, bewildered by the bizarre sensation that it'd been repainted and refurnished only it hadn't.
Everything felt like that. At once intimately familiar yet somehow alien and out of place.
Like -- me...
Get a grip, man! Get a grip!
Man??
Oh My God...
My face buried in my slim hands which were still shaking then I looked in the mirror at my pale awed face.
Jesus Christ...
I remember.
Everything.
Once being Alexander Summers.
No, not 'Once'.
AM!
Yes...yes!
I'm back -- totally!
God!
The last hard thing I -- Alex -- remembered from totally being Alex was lying tiny on Marilyn's bed, raptly gazing a mirror at an adorable creamy white little girl in a pink top and blue shorts and frilly pink socks and blue sneakers, her snapping blonde curls draped her pillow like a golden halo and framing a rosy pudgy-cheeked face with huge sleepy blue eyes and long pale lashes held rapt by mommy's soft soothing voice while a minty fog teased my button nose and filled my lungs with hot heavy tiredness...
No.
Not 'mommy'.
Marilyn.
Sly tricky bitch witch Marilyn.
A witless surge of outrage bumped me from my daze and totally awake as Alex with crystal clarity.
No--
"Awake"'s not the right word. I'd been "awake" as Miranda for ten years, only amnesic of the fifty years I'd lived before. I -- when I was only Miranda -- always sensed my -- Alex's -- thoughts and feelings in the back of my -- her -- mind, but they were just dormant memories as passive as the bits and bytes on a hard drive. Now suddenly they were re-energized living experiences whose older greater mass pushed my Miranda fraction off the throne of consciousness, but not without a buffeting battle for the drivers seat in the mother of all migraines.
Damn!
She's -- we're -- one!!
My feathery eyelashes squeezed tight as I concentrated to stifle my alien younger rebellious thoughts. My suppressed Miranda fraction realized she blotched her attempt to erase my Alex memories and was desperately trying to buck me off, but I held on to consciousness like a bronco buster. It didn't help having the seductive hormones, glands and brain of a sixteen-year-old girl stacked against your male will and ego, and it was only the blaze of alarm at receding into a vain selfish adolescent that fired my frantic grab for any straw of an edge to override her, and I ironically and ruefully found it in her most ardent memories.
With high chagrin and appall, my desperate fresh Alex Will forced my thawed male ego to face scathing memories of sweaty fumbling tyrsts with Chuck. And with Jake. And Allen.
And Kevin.
And Franklin.
And Donald.
And Eddie and Tyrone and Maxwell, and other junior high and senior high school jocks and studs, peeling me -- panting Miranda -- before my eyes in all their strapping stud humping wonder.
O Jesus --!!
My male ego and gut convulsed and I doubled over and vehemently puked, and as I gasped and rasped I felt the other pressure on my mind draw back as though cowed by a raging beast.
"Right, you know it, girl!' I rasped aloud while wiping my lips, relieved that I at least momentarily purged the sordid teenage thoughts fighting me, but in dismay I felt like -- was -- a self-professed macho man regularly gang raped by her torrid teen tangles with the full fidelity of living each experience as my own.
O God, how can I live that down? Letting kids -- punks -- do all that shit to me, even if I wasn't in control? How can I look myself in the mirror and even think that I'm a man when I turn back?? Yet, to my dismay, a fraction of my mind wasn't just unfazed by those demeaning experiences, but craved them.
It's her.
Stupid giggly Miranda's habit of fawning over all her slobbering boyfriends.
Damn!
At least I'm still mostly Alex right now while my outraged male ego keeps the fool girl at bay! Sounds weird, but it didn't feel like two souls battling in my head, but rather conflicting states of mind trying to reassert themselves as ruler of my consciousness. True, I was mostly Alex again now, but I couldn't stave off my autonomous female fraction for long; I woke in foreign territory whose hormones and alien instincts were even now smothering my original core identity.
In a half-daze I staggered off the floor to the Book on my -- Miranda's -- dresser and idly leaved through its pages. Like a typical teen she relied too much on computers to do her thinking than good old fashioned research; Google's language translation was as accurate as a bi-lingual five-year-old at the U.N. It was my good fortunate that her slight error went in my favor. Her misfortune -- for now. But I wasn't sure exactly how to proceed. Just whipping up a concoction was out of the question, and exactly for what was a question too. Returning my original form seemed ideal, but oddly enough, ten years as a girl blossomed its own brand of body and gender pride too, so changing back just because I'd soft curves and firm upswept boobs and a cute blond face instead of a tall husky hairy bod now didn't feel all that critical -- in fact it felt slighting in a way, like a girl told she was an ugly bitch.
Yea, weird, but that's how it feels now. That's not to say I -- Alex me -- want to surrender life as a teenage girl, but I must grudgingly admit that right now I feel far more freshly accustomed to being a girl. Whether I'll one day fire-up enough male ego willpower to overwhelm my fresh female self-esteem and have Book and concoction at the ready to chug and chant was up in the air, and it wouldn't happen at all if she continued fighting to be top dog, though I could understand her appall at being bodyjacked.
So right now I need an immediate solution before my Miranda fraction returns like a beast in the night creeping closer to a dying campfire to undermine me, and before Marilyn got home and sniffed something different about me and checkmated me with some spell from a copy of the Book I'm certain she had. I couldn't even run away somewhere safe until I tempered this inner teen trying to tug our mind's steering wheel from my grasp.
I paced the empty house, straining to steel my defrosted mind over a flailing child's while desperately pondering a solution, and as my old reflex mindlessly reached for the old ashtray on the mantle I startled at a plucked chord of memory and wild hope.
It felt eerie watching yourself on your shrink's office VCR, sitting prim and stiff on the coach in my -- Miranda's -- most 'conservative' dress which was my -- 'her' -- seldom worn Sunday ensemble, your deep blue glassy gaze tracking Dr. Jain's stubby finger before they snapped and your pale feathery eyelashes fluttered and your eyes looked up with nonplused wonder before politely smiling as he turned off the vidcam. Then the session log tape ended.
Ejecting it to hand me, Dr. Jain said, "As your father will see, you responded exceptionally well. Though I must say, you exhibit remarkable willpower to undermine Miranda so powerfully, Miss Summers."
"'Randi', please??" I sweetly requested with a coral-glossed smile in my best French accent which must've worked by his badly veiled ogling of my unteen poised demeanor, and I was pretty sure he mostly taped this session to assure me and 'dad' that he hadn't messed with my Barbie bod while I was deep under. "I'd good reason to, Dr. Jain; I don't want to wake up late out in a bar when I'm supposed to be at church choir rehearsal again!" I answered "Now, just to be sure, Dr. Jain, you blocked Miranda from taking over my mind anymore, right?"
"Well, I have to admit that I've never seen an as well-developed multiple personality as Miranda outside a fugue in my whole career, Miss -- er, 'Randi', but I believe I've fortified your subconscious will enough that hers won't subjugate yours for the time being, though you might sense her thoughts and feelings lurking in the background like a tiger in a cage. Understand, my -- forte in disassociated personality disorder is rather limited."
Of course! Being a habit-breaking shrink rolls in way more mula than clinic cases!
"Oh no, you've done well, Dr. Jain. I feel better already, so Daddy will be thrilled!" I related with renewed confidence now that I wasn't buffeted by my Miranda mindset for conscious control. It was a good thing Jain never thought of interrogating my stabilized Alex mindset or else he'd REALLY think I was a freak!
"So how's your father doing, Randi?" he curiously inquired. "I haven't seen him over ten years! Last I heard he was kidnapped by terrorists!"
I lightly laughed. "If that happened to daddy, you could be sure you'd heard from Mom, right??" I chaffed, knowing he'd heard the wild rumors flying way back that Alexander Summers had been embezzling and flown the country. True, I'd been ruthless and underhanded and even unscrupulous in my day, but robbing was beneath my dignity.
"Actually, daddy came to Switzerland to support me through my multiple personality treatments at the convent, but lately he's become so disappointed with their results that he decided to fly me all the way here just to see you. That's why I have my suitcase with me, fresh from the airport! Daddy wanted to come along too, but he's been having all these meetings about some secret government contract stuff, you know?"
"Yes, he always was a very busy man, Randi. I'm pleased he has that much faith in my help. I hope my anti-smoking treatment worked well for him."
"Believe me, Dr. Jain; a good drag is the least thing on his mind right now!" I replied and his brightened smile erased his looking at me if at a rich man's discreetly ensconced schizo bastard. That was alright. I was used being called one.
After an hour at a cybercafe I picked up a Western Union moneygram from my Swiss account for several thousand dollars then celebrated my new freedoms with a royal dinner at Applebees -- minus the wine the waitress refused me. I had the Book and my original personality back (along with the juvenile memories of another) in a fresh new bod to go another seventy or so years, which was a no-brainer keeper since immortality unfortunately wasn't in the Book.
By now Marilyn knew I -- Miranda -- wasn't home, but she'd just assume 'I' was capriciously spending the night with a boyfriend again before calling the police by noon tomorrow, and by that time I'll be in Honolulu. I didn't use any of Miranda's traceable plastic and all I needed was a student i.d. for the plane which I'll burn soon as I landed in paradise and cab over to my former corporate retreat's North Shore bungalow where the locals will just shrug at seeing another exect's stashed secret mistress being shacked up. There, with the internet and my Book at hand, I can finally relax and start forging a new life.
My all too intimate memories of watching my child/"sister" being corrupted with the passive consent of her mother humbled me of my past transgressions as a MIA father. Still, even as I knew I shouldn't feel so, but I wasn't going to miss Katie one wilt since she'd grown one conceited gold-digging tramp whose predatory promiscuity not only scored other girls too, but even her own victim-protegee sister, whom she also coached at sacking schoolboys since seventh-grade. Grimly recalling those appallingly sick episodes with and by my own daughter churned my gut and raked my soul even more than knowing the smallest lurid details of Miranda's teenage trysts, and made me wish I'd gone ahead and swapped the birth control pills in Katie's drawer for Tylenol.
As for Marilyn, I can't even begin to express my contempt for hers -- and my insane stupidity for allowing her to cast a spell on me for any reason. I'd never ever find myself behind the eight-ball in business or society like that, so I chalked it up to the infantile gullibility of my kindergarten mindset at the time. God knows I'd never been an angel, but I'd never used the book to injure anyone in leaping to the top. In fact, all my spells were self-inflicted and never touched another living thing; At most my -- corporate rivals, lost promotions, stocks, or reputations, but never their minds and souls.
Like Marilyn's 'loving' kiss of death on my kiddie forehead for Alex's soul even while she was laving my chest with her insidious mystic goo to smother it.
No, Marilyn had to pay one day when her guard was down, and it wasn't just my deeply wounded masculine pride getting back. I shudder to think that Marilyn is sure to pass her certain scans of the Book on to Katie, and just for that reason alone its legacy obliged me to devout much of my life to becoming a virtual sorcerer of its most arcane spells and incantations to counter anything Katie's haughty vicious personality might evoke upon the world. Even Miranda's lurking mind-shadow, with the clarity of Alex's 'outside' perspective and arbitrary morals, concurred that notion with a shiver, much to my relief.
You'd think our "merged minds" would end up a blended consciousness but oddly it wasn't quite that way, rather it was like Miranda suddenly woke with a whole new batch of older memories which overwhelmed her mind with its own self-awareness which regenerated my return to full consciousness. In a sense, my mind had "morphed" from Miranda's which itself was "born" from my original amnesic self, and what remained of her were voiceless urges and feelings shadowing my thoughts like a ghost. At least Miranda was still somewhat "conscious" in my head; Alex was totally frozen out when she was in the drivers seat!
Still, my Alex self-esteem and ego wasn't that cocky about my dominance since it was in peril on Miranda's home court in a female body with gender identity molding glands and neurons and instincts. Given time, my Alex-self was doomed to dissolve in a bath of estrogen and maternal instincts evolving back into a smugly seasoned triumphant Miranda. Naturally my male ego was alarmed, but intellectually I also know out of sheer practicality that I'll have to accept more of my girly Miranda instincts and wiles to successfully live in her world's age and sex until my self-esteem was content and flexible enough to even think of returning as Alexander Summers or even a man. But that didn't mean I'd totally lost some old virile impulses.
Like gazing the smoky mirrored wall across from my table at the pert poised blue-eyed coral-smiled chick curving out a Sunday outfit where wavy golden tresses roiled over a nicely rounded bodice above sleek crossed silken legs...
Jesus!!
It was only a few moments after I drew a panting breath did I realize that I was and blushed at my wild impulses.
It was as though I was ogling my own reflection the same way I once ogled women, only it was both wistful and titillating in a weird narcissistic daughter-incest way, and ironically it didn't help my struggling male ego any by taking Miranda for a looker. Then, I -- when just Miranda -- was never modest about recognizing and exploiting her knockout assets to get my -- er, her way, and it just might come in handy in finding a new stepladder boss or drooling partner, just like my earlier stint as a much less endowed female to bag a rival, only not so temporary.
Alexanda Winters.
I like the sound of that! Way more distinguished than that Mirnada-soothing compromise 'Randi', especially since that fraction of my mind wasn't hassling me anymore. Besides what serious firm hires anyone named 'Randi'??
Alexanda Winters. Lady C.E.O.
Why not?? 'Tween these looks, the Book and my seasoned guile, I could even surpass my success as Alex! As a shrewd businessman I intimately knew the chumps and suckers men were while Miranda's precocious nymphette wiles sure knew all too well how to manipulate them!
I inwardly grinned in wild titillation as the blond siren across from me cutely pouted like Marilyn Monroe then dropped a shy angelic kid look that'd turn the Pope into a pedophile.
Breathlessly awesome!
With sass and skills and looks like that, I'll make my first million before I'm twenty, easy! Yea, I'll miss strutting my six two frame and eight-inch junior, but sashaying a curvy young foxy bod is the ticket to a whole fresh game, and passing Alex's torch on to Alexanda to win again doesn't bruise my male pride at all!
Yea!
Save one or two pukey exceptions I can totally do this girl thing!
After all, I'm my own daughter now, right?
Miranda's impulsive girly giggle escaped my sly chuckle, and far from smarting my male ego it sounded kinda cute coming from me.
BUMP!!!
Someone shoved into the bench next to me and before I could even turn to see who, a face practically slammed into mine and arrogant lips clamped over my gasp of surprise while hefty arms twined me to pulled up against him.
WHAT THE FUCK -- ??!!
Even as I cringed trapped under the brazen kiss, the chicklette back of my mind instantly sensed who it was.
Chuck.
The same prick who -- who --
My pried mouth and male ego bridled to recoil and slug back, but the impulse was reined back by shock and by the rush of Miranda's swoony awe just in time before his wet sharkish grin pulled back. Maddeningly, confusedly, my dismay felt my well-rounded bodice thump beneath my stifled smirk while my male ego flared with chagrin. Still, Jain did a good job of tempering my freshly melded mind from spitting out the bastard's vile saliva and wiping my wetted lips to instead face the prick with Miranda's fool giggily smile.
"Chuckie! Like, what are you doing here??" I Miranda-twittered, trying not snicker at her default ditzy Valley Girl twang.
So bizarre!
I loathed this smug junior jock's guts, yet my plump bosom was thumping high as a kite. It was rather dismaying to see how Miranda's smaller cut of my experience and conscious could so briefly totally counteract my will and feelings, yet I was grudgingly thankful here because I would've tore Chuck into a bloody pulp. Maybe for Miranda it's a heavenly experience, but for me, vividly remembering spurting pricks being jammed and pumped and humped in me ten ways to Sunday for hundreds of times was the absolute insult and unforgivable trashing of any real man's soul.
Ironically, that I still felt so vehement about it in Alex's state was kind of a relief.
But I can't afford to get into trouble now! The police will haul my pretty ass back to that witch Marilyn, and I and any second chance escaping will be royally screwed!
My mind strained to keep from retching at his fondling paws and to rein Miranda impulses back from dragging me along with her pubescent desires. Sad for me to admit like a bimbo's dad, but while Miranda was a polished teen temptress, she wasn't all that bright in the common sense and reason department, so it was fortunate that my greater mind largely took over her intellectual faculties if not her more primal emotional ones.
"Oh, just checking out the chicks!" Chuck gibed, leaning to nibble my tender ear, and despite my cringing male core, I felt tickled to giggle while struggling not to indulge Miranda's habitual giddy thrill as he moved in for a deep French kiss while groping my plump marshmallow bosom...
Fuck --!!!
My mindless arm pulled to shoot up to slug him but he grabbed it high like I was coyly faking a slap and effortlessly pulled it down.
Shit!
This Barbie bod's weak as a damn kitten!
I can't take it! Sorry!!
I was about to violently wrest myself away when he broke off, grinning like a smug cat. "Hey, babe, why so uptight?" he asked. "What you all dressed-up for? A funeral? Hey, what's the suitcase for? Running away from home with me or what?"
I smirked, and despite myself, felt my fiery ire mellow into a weird demure simmer gazing back at his grinning mug with shimmer instead of a blaze.
Christ!
Miranda's damn estrogens must be basting my male ego like a Thanksgiving turkey! It's bad enough I -- she -- can't ever get enough of this prick, but her damn fluttery feelings are going scramble my wits at time when they've got to be sharp! Like, this dickhead can blow my whole plan! Chuck sticks to me -- er, Miranda -- like mated mayflies, and she never refuses him because he's also her best sugar daddy-in-training so I can't just shake him off or grab a cab to the airport or appear different to him without his wondering why leaking it to Marilyn in a cell call. The last thing I need is for L.A. or Honolulu customs to grab me on the threshold of freedom!
Think, Man, think, while you're still mostly one upstairs!
"Well??" Chuck prodded, and frantically rifling ideas, I turned my hot face and lightly shrugged.
"Uh, yea. Like, kinda. I'm -- I'm like, going to my cousin's place to see his grandma at the hospital for a couple of days. She has, like, melanoma, you know?"
"Melony huh? Oh. Uh, sorry about that..." Chuck said with specious jock comprehension and sympathy, but at least he dropped his grubby arms. "Uh, is there anything I can do for you?"
Yea -- put a .45 'tween them teeth smile and pull!
I faced Chuck with a cute cloy smile holding back gnashing teeth. "Er, like, as a matter of fact..."
Easter is a time to parade your best to a new best friend.
Easter Best
(abridged, frm Easter Givings 2002)
by Deela Eon
It began shortly after the first day of spring in Aunt Em's Victorian rural home after my foster mom "aunt" and I finished breakfast after she turned off her tabletop radio in the middle of reporting John Glenn's splashdown.
"Peter..." she said fondly with a poignant sad look. "These three years you've been with me have been the happiest I've ever had. I'm now sure those social workers are eating crow for calling you a very troublesome child. I'm only sorry I hadn't cared for you since you were seven after your parents' terrible car accident."
"I know, Aunt Em," I quietly answered with a sober lump in my throat, trying to sound calm and nonchalant like any twelve-year-old junior jock, but it was hard after she broke the grim terrible news last week.
"Now, since it'll be the last Easter I'll ever know—"
My heart twitched. "Aunt Em, don't say that!" I cried. "You'll get better! You gotta!"
"Peter, I wish it wasn't true. We've already gone through this. You needn't worry because I'm placing you in a good foster home before I die."
"No! I wanna stay here — with you! You're the best foster mom I ever had!" I flung myself around her and she stroked my short locks. It was a terrifying to notion, not only losing her but facing a new unknown set of guardians. I doubted any would be as forgiving and obliging as Aunt Em.
"There is only one wish I miss...but I don't know if you can fulfill it."
"Anything, Aunt Em! Anything!"
She paused, looking at me with demure wistful eyes. "You're everything I could wish in a grandson, yet...I miss what it's like having a granddaughter, especially now that Easter is coming in two weeks. You've seen how my quilting-bee friends are always bragging about their granddaughters! About how proper and pretty they are at Easter church service then the Easter pageant parade on Main Street to the park. Strolling alongside their being all lovely in pink and lace, so happy and proud they've such pretty grandchildren...
"O, I'd hate to die never knowing that feeling!"
"I'm sorry, Aunt Em!" I sincerely said, feeling awkward at feeling her angst but understanding it. Whenever her quilting-bee dropped by, all they ever clucked about were their granddaughters and nieces and how nice and pretty and smart they were, especially when now it seemed girls were starting to show up not only in the streets but at school in blue jeans and sneakers instead of full-skirted dresses and maryjanes or skimmers. You started hearing older women fret, calling it the beginning of the end of juvenile femininity and the 'tomboy look', though others just shrugged it off as merely a passing trend in society.
She smiled a wistful look. "Maybe you don't have to feel sorry, Peter. In fact, maybe there's a way you can help grant my last fondest wish before I die."
"Last wish? How??" I asked and she paused and looked pitifully hopeful, like she was resting all her possessions on my shoulders.
"If you do something very, very special for me only for Easter weekend, even though you might feel very funny about it or much too scared to do it even though no one else will ever know."
"Don't worry 'bout that, Aunt Em! I'll do anything for you! Doing what?" I asked, muting the slight to my courage. She looked at once contrite and wistful, as though already doubting I'd oblige her.
"Well, you see sweet Peter, I was wishing...hoping...if maybe just for one special day, you might pose as my granddaughter."
"Huh??" I blinked aback, then shrugged off a sickly old man's obvious grammatical error. "Er, you mean your grandson, right?"
She gently smiled. "No, sweet, Peter. My granddaughter. The granddaughter I never had."
"Granddaughter??" I said, not entirely sure I understood then with a gasp of dismay I scanned her eyes for any sly sparkle of any joke. None. "You—you want me to pose as—as a—a girl??"
"Just this Easter weekend. I just once want to pretend that I'm showing my community bee that I've a granddaughter of my very own!"
"Er...huh, see...I mean...but, I'm a boy, Aunt Em!" I gingerly but firmly emphasized. "I mean, isn't there a girl somewhere else who can pose way better than me you can ask??"
"I would — but it wouldn't be the same, Peter. If I ever had a real goddaughter, I'd want her to be exactly like you. I could never be as proud of a stand-in as I am of you!" she gently complimented my muddled gratitude while patting my hand. "It'd mean so much to me before I die, a happy thought to take to my grave," she said like a flattering plea to my total floored look. I didn't want to say no to someone who didn't treat me like some temporary boarder at a vet, but at the same time my struggling budding male ego welled qualms and bitter social memories.
But then she was dying.
Consternated, bemused, naive and even a little guilty, I gnashed my lip before her begging smile before reconsidering my objection with a fresh social note; I mean how bad can it be obliging her wish since girls can look the same as boys in jeans and sneakers now? I can grin and bear the humiliation of her cronies mistaking me for a crew-cut tomboy for a couple of minutes.
"Oh well..." my naiveté sighed, "I...I guess so, Aunt Em."
"O thank you, hon!" she nearly squealed, kissing me. "You just don't know how much this means to me! I can't wait to see the faces of my bee when they see my goddaughter visiting for Easter! Oh, we'd best be shopping right away!"
"Didn't we get everything at the supermarket yesterday?"
She tittered and tweaked my cheek, "Such a darling! I mean shopping for your Easter outfit!"
"Easter outfit??" I braced in sinking apprehension. "I mean, I'm not just wearing jeans and sneakers like some girls do??"
"Of course not! Not on Easter! Not even for tomboys! Only the nicest prettiest dresses and ensembles will do for my granddaughter!"
Nicest?
Prettiest??
The horror of my commitment sunk in. "You mean I—I gotta wear a—a— real girls' clothes??" I blurted, unable to even say the words.
"Why, of course! A girl should dress like a girl, not a boy!"
"But I'm a—a—!..." My balk gnashed my waxy-coated lower lip, instinctively just unable to shatter the happiness shining her face after so many months in the dark doldrums. As totally off the wall as her request was, I just couldn't couldn't face her liquid dying eyes with a cold selfish head-shake.
Stifling a grudging sigh, I soberly nodded and she happily tittered and hugged me.
"O, I'm so pleased that I'm I'll be going to God happy, after finally seeing my sweet lovely little Bunny!"
"Huh? 'Bunny'??"
'Bunny'??
Man!
Whatta way to spend Easter Break!
- - -
"There we go!" Aunt Em happily chimed as her steam comb brushed my short locks into kind of a pixie cut, and silently I scolded myself for stalling my overdue haircut! My chagrin didn't need any mirror to tell it was a sissy hairstyle for any guy, even though I heard that in England hair down to your ears was kinda popular now for guys.
Aunt Em read my silent grimace. "Well, you know why I have to do this before we go shopping, Peter, right?"
"So no one will think I'm — really a boy when you pick out my — stuff, right?" I skeptically murmured with a bitter sigh that merely brushing my hair in a girl's style was enough to pass me off as one without even changing my jeans, sneakers or sweatshirt. But then ever since kindergarten people from substitute teachers to strangers were always mistaking me for a 'pretty tomboy' half the time. It really sucked and contributed to pumping my macho swagger and bad attitude even before my folks' fatal car crash. That's why I was a little surprised that I didn't put up more of a protest to Aunt Em's crazy proposal, but then I chalked it up to only paying back someone who plucked me out of an orphanage zoo and treated me as one of her own family instead as a road to a paycheck.
Besides, she was dying.
"Done!" Aunt Em said, standing back and nodding at my new hairstyle. "Now to brush-up your delicate demeanor as well!"
"I'm not mean, Aunt Em!"
"No, no, I meant the way you come across to people. If you wish to pass for a girl you have to move like a girl and act like a girl. After all, you don't want anyone to tell you're really a boy, right?"
What a warped trap.
Groan.
It all seemed like an awful lot of trouble and humiliation to teach me how girls don't really sit and walk and gesture, still, after an hour Aunt Em felt I was ready for shopping. Aunt Em admonished my pose in the car once or twice to keep my knees and ankles 'properly' welded together, which only made me all the more nervous about looking a dainty sissy to any schoolmates I might run into at the mall as I timidly followed Aunt Em into 'Moi Belles Boutique'. First we headed for the shoe section where my Keds sneakers came off and Aunt Em picked out a pair of robin's-egg blue patent leather lo-heel pumps with cute blue bows. Ruefully, I sat down while the salesman knelt to work several shoes up my white socks, though I felt he cupped my heel in his palm a little long between shoes and made me walk in the alien footwear, though it looked deliciously eerie looking down and seeing a fancy girl's shoe where mine ought been.
Smiling, Aunt Em nodded then told the eager salesman; "Also, a pair of charcoal suede skimmers, please! With anklet socks too."
"Huh? Why I need two pair, Aunt Em?" I asked, baffled.
"One's dress, the other casual."
"I mean, it's just for Easter so why I need another pair?"
"Well, you can't wear Easter finery all day, dear! There's your Easter dress outfit for church and the Easter parade later on, and a casual one for meeting my bee in."
"'Casual one'??" I blinked aback at a stunning hint. "Wait! You mean you're getting another outfit?? Why can't i just wear the same one for them?"
"Because it's just not done! All boys know that!" Aunt Em tittered as though everyone knew the mysterious fashion etiquette of girls. Of course I knew squat, but felt better than challenge that revelation than show my ignorance.
Groan!
The salesman slipped frilly white socks up my foot then velvety black flats which felt like slippers when I walked. "Very good, young man!" Aunt Em said. "She's wearing them to the dresses department too."
"Huh??" I blurted as the salesman packed my sneakers in another bag and Aunt Em moved on to the dreaded pre-juniors department. I was impressed how my snug girl-shoes felt even more comfortable than my sneakers, but my new hairdo just wasn't a disguise enough for my ego to pass as a girl here, and I was glumly staring at the floor while Aunt Em primped through aisle of fluffy laces and silks and chiffons.
"Come Bunny, chose an outfit!"
I winced and anxiously glanced about if anyone heard. "Aunt Em, please don't call me that here."
"Oh, don't fret, darling! They see a tomboy, not boy! Now pick your favorite color!"
"I don't have any, Aunt Em," I politely but unenthusiastically answered.
"Bunny, just touch the dresses! This is what you're wearing to church too!" Her serious reverent tone somehow diminished the sissy shame of the dresses almost to picking out a suit, and somewhat begrudgingly I felt the silky garments and the soft smoothness tingled up my fingers. For some reason the sensation was almost welcome, even somehow familiar and seemed to soothe my male ego's ruffled feathers.
Aunt Em chose eight dresses for me to take to the try-on room where I briefly but lamely balked at her coaxing me to strip down to my underwear before her, but once again my embarrassment fell strangely feeble and wafted entirely as she led my passage with donning alien clothing while strange giggly waves of unadmitted awe and fascination rippled through me as the smooth brush of sateen and lace caressed my skin. It was so weird because I never anticipated that the mere touch of clothing could be so dynamically sumptuous, yet reaping those sensations easily overwhelmed any self-consciousness. Maybe it was because I knew that my damning dissembling was only temporary and likely a once-in-a-lifetime dare to indulge the tingly strangeness of it.
After a hour of surprise enjoyment doing guy-forbidden fashions I grudgingly settled on a pale-pink accordion chiffon dress with a nautical-looking peach-pastel top and Aunt Em bought a roll-brim satin-ribboned bonnet, white knit gloves and frilly anklets and a package of ivory tights to go with it, then just as I thought we were headed for the cashier, she moved over to an aisle of casual clothes and took down a plaid jumper.
"What's that for?" I asked.
"Your casual dress!"
"Huh? O, yea..." I sighed and compromised from her frilly preferences with a powder blue blouse and a teal jumper whose skirt was really a flared skort which I figured might make me feel more like I was wearing a pair of shorts instead of a skirt, especially since I could still wear boys' underpants.
Man!
What a frilly sissy!
How can I live this down? Is even her feelings worth all this??
Freak!
"My, how lovely!" Aunt Em said to my muffled smirk as my chagrin hastily modeled a turn before turning for the try-on room. "No, don't change, Bunny. I think we're wear that out."
"What???" I blurted with a shiver, "But what about my real clothes?"
"I'll stuff them in a bag. I think you should start getting used to wearing your new clothes around people before the bee drops in."
"But—but I can't leave like this!" I blurted in fringe horror. "There're kids from my school all over the mall! If they see me like this my name's dead meat!"
"Don't fret, Peter. I won't embarrass you, I promise," she said, leading me over to the wig department to drape several different tress styles over my head.
Grossy groan!
Still, it was fun seeing my different brunette, redhead and raven selves in the mirror, finally settling on a flaxen-blonde number with heaps of roiling curls that cascaded around my face and off my shoulders. Blond and red hair seemed to draw more attention on my face, but black seemed to partly mute your features, which was fine with me, though I had to admit my reflection in frames of wispy teasing curls and bangs looked pretty in a weird cute twin sister sort of way. I was doubly skittish as hell as we left the boutique, and it was worst as Aunt Em decided on idly window shopping the length of the mall. I was scared shit that someone from school was going to recognize me in a teal jumper, raven tresses and suede flats and anxiously kept my back to the street while hiding my chagrin at assorted storefronts, but behind the twin sis in my reflection my dread of seeing laughing stares from shoppers and especially other boys not only came up dry, but caught a few of them following me with interested smiles that felt oddly delightful.
After a while my anxiety of being seen as a boy in drag waned and trained my self-awareness back on myself, at the strange silky raven mass flouncing on my shoulders and the eerie shameful coolness wafting up my bare legs and swirly skirt which itself felt like a flagging tease as I primly walked according to Aunt Em's directions.
"Very good practice, Bunny! Say, let's have lunch!" Aunt Em suggested, beaming. "Just mind your mannerisms!"
I thought we were going to a weiner stand, but instead we went to a diner with booths and music boxes at every table, though it was embarrassing the way Aunt Em nitpicked my table posture and manners.
"Fold your hands on the table -- and keep your knees and ankles pressed together -- but you can cross your ankles if you want."
'No way! I'd be too sissy!' I thought, though I was surprised and a little bewildered how whelmed I was by the novel sensations of my new frilly sissy but cute clothes. I chalked it up to the novelty of it all; I was quite assured my staunch masculinity would trump any sissy inclinations evoked by this episode.
---
Aunt Em woke me around seven o'clock for a Easter breakfast and a shower and donning my Easter outfit.
I had to first roll ivory tights up my legs which was a new experience, especially since I was in my underwear with Aunt Em helping me out. It felt eerie, seeing my skinny legs transformed by a silky frosty film into almost elegant columns then over that a crinoline slip whose short starchy skirt fanned away from my thighs.
"Er, try this now," Aunt Em shyly said, producing a skimpy garment that made my ego cringe in horror.
"No! No way!! I can't wear that, Aunt Em!"
"But it'll make your dress look better and you a more ladylike young lady."
"I'm a boy, Aunt Em, not a girl!" my muddled ego parried and her badly hid wince tweaked my hurt with selfish guilt, so I sighed and raised my arms for her to slide the straps over and lower the flat lacy garment over my chest.
A Bra???
Man, is this super-sissy shit or what??
As though to quickly cover my humiliation, Aunt Em dropped the mint pastel dress over my head and tugged its hem down almost to my knees — which it couldn't touch because the crinoline slip underneath belled out the pale-pink chiffon accordion skirt away from my legs. Which looked kinda old fashioned and neat in a way, especially how it swirled a little with the smallest twist of the waist. Also my stuffed bodice was hardly any Mae West; twin puffed pancakes was more like it, and it did give my garment a teasing kind of budding maturity.
It was different from my casual jumper outfit beyond having no hidden boy-shorts-like skort to half-assauge my ego; this elegant ensemble was meant to groom and flaunt dainty femininity.
Aunt Em sat me down to lightly powder puff my face and tease my eyelashes feathery lush and brush a waxy coral gloss over my gaping lips. After draping a curly raven mane over my head crowned with my bonnet on top, and working ivory-filmed toes work into eggshell pumps, she let me face the mirror—
Wow!!
My twin sis looked cute in her jumper yesterday, but now she looked glamourous and winsome gawking back so, and coyly-teenish with her mildly mounded bodice and magically nice sleek frosted legs. But it was her new face that floored me, so powder-perfect and her gawking eyes so wide in their feathery nests and gaping lips so eerily becoming with their pale coral shine...
I felt—
Omigosh!
"Well, how does it feel, Bunny?"
Blinking nonplussed, I gnashed my waxy-coated lower lip then mustered a pleased chuckle not only because I didn't know how to describe it, but I was kind of embarrassed at just how awkwardly and sheepishly moved I was as a 'tween' guy facing a dolled-up chick closer than any other girl besides my sister.
Gee, hope I'm not TOO attractive! I dreaded and fancied.
"Pull your skirt, darling!" Aunt Em said as I sidled into the car's front seat after first smoothing my skirt beneath me and burying my folded knit gloves upon its fullness. I was nervous as heck, despite all Aunt Em's reassurances and yesterday's mall trial-run, and as we got out a block down from the church my skittish heart jumped as Aunt Em instantly spotted one of her bee friends. Thank god boys weren't expected to hang around elderly circles and I hardly ever faced Aunt Em's cronies those times they dropped by for tea and aimless chatter in the back sun parlor.
"Hi Helen!!" she called an elegant dowager over who kissed her then considered me. "Helen, my granddaughter, Bunny."
"My, my!" Helen tittered. "What a lovely young lady!"
With that my skittishness of being a boy caught dead in girls clothes dissolved with a stifled smirk as I aptly fanned out my skirt as did a bob.
"Happy Easter, ma'am."
"Oh, Emma, she's precious! I can't get my god or grandchildren to dress pretty if I got on my knees! If only they didn't only look this way only on holidays! Don't you agree, Bunny?"
"Oh, huh..." I mulled the point, and to my surprise my response came from the cozy alien feelings of my snug lacy envelope. "Well, it's a lot nicer than dressing the other way."
Helen beamed. "Well, no tomboy here, eh, Emma??"
"Bunny's a very special little lady," Emma said, looking fondly at me. "I couldn't ask for a more considerate and compassionate granddaughter!"
Her beaming face made my bodice swell by a cup size and I knew I made her day and light to heaven.
Demurely, I trailed them into church, meeting up with and greeting more of Aunt Em's cronies who smiled endearingly at my every curtsy which was quickly losing its sissiness. I aptly spread my skirt as I perched the pew between Aunt Em and the center aisle. I was never all that religious— like, not hardly, but being in that crisp soft envelope seemed to coax a gentleness and reverence of my natures from me I never suspected I had.
Throughout Easter church service I muffed my yawns behind my knit gloves and usually when I did the corner of my eye often caught a few boys craning faces my way, but I was sure that they noticed nothing different about me as I kept my nice silken knees and low-heels welded together and gloves clasped upon my puffy skirt's lap.
After service, the pastor greeted me at the door without a trace of recognition, and Aunt Em reintroduced me to her cadre as I executed deep curtsies and beamed headlight smiles as we all took a stroll toward the park.
"O, how they dote you, Bunny!" Aunt Em happily exclaimed aside then, quietly soberly sighing at all the lovely girls in flouncy silks and lace exiting the church, headed us for Main Street's Easter parade to join and mingle with all kinds of other churches and groups. I was amazed at all the Easter finery, both whimsical and elegant. It was awesomely pretty to see schoolgirls all dolled up with curls like fluffy lacy butterflies gathering and tittering and teasing another's princess looks and basking looks from proud and wistful adults. And not only them.
Aunt Em certainly got her wish.
I felt like her primped prize poodle before beaming and complimenting grown-ups, which was so delightful and fascinating because I never received such flattery as a guy. I wanted to bask my strange newfound praise but my jealous male ego balked and moved me to mosey away to perch a park bench up the grassy tree-covered slope overlooking the duck pond where swans paddled away from remote-controlled sailboats. My knit gloves idly preened the sheeny fluffy skirt veiling my lap and the raven wisps lapping the front of slightly mounded chest while I mulled the odd feelings flitting inside me, knowing that I should feel abashed and sissy as hell, yet, I felt a kind of pleased pride at the reception my disguise took.
If I really looked this nice to people and drew such pleased attention that felt so nice, I wondered what my life would've been as a girl instead. It was a thought I routinely fought since kindergarten, being mistaken for a 'pretty tomboy,' but doesn't my debut here prove that people weren't joking or teasing or wrong about me? Do I really look better a girl than a guy? But even if such was so, it didn't mean I had to act all dainty like a girl like I did today. Looks weren't everything! It's what you are inside too!...
Something like a E.S.P. zap in my mind made my feathery eyelashes blink and focus in the reality beyond my muse. I'd been idly watching a race of three boats when I suddenly noticed a boy in all his neat Easter spruce-up looking my way.
Staring straight me!
Which was embarrassing enough but there was more and I squinted tighter then gasped back.
My heart seized.
Ohmigosh!
Craig Caldwell!
One of the eighth-grade jocks in my class! I didn't really know him but he's seen me since grammar school!
Headed this way!
Oh God!!
I'm a dead man!
Frantically, I jerked down the floppy front brim of my bonnet to block my face from sight, but that was definitely a wrong signal.
"Hi."
Oh God! He's right in front of me! No way he can't recognize me!!
"Hi—hi—" I weakly said still under my blocking brim, silken knees knocking under my skirt.
Jesus! How could I explain this?? You can't!!!
"Er, can I ask a question?"
"Huh?"
"Do you have a brother or a cousin who looks a little like you?"
I nearly tittered in my scoffing evasion.
"Brother?? No, no way!!" I blurted, too high, too histrionically, too desperately, and my heart flipped double as he peeked under my blocking brim to see my face up close.
"Peter???" Craig gushed in amazement. "Peter Martin???"
"Peter??" I tittered like a girl bird, turning aside. "Who's Peter? I—I'm not any Peter! I'm a—a girl! Look!"
"You are Peter!" Craig insisted. "You sounded just like him just now and look a little like him, but it's really you isn't it? Not any twin sister or anything, right?"
I wanted to sink to the center of the Earth. There was no reason to deny it. I was caught. Exposed. Seen the most sissy way a guy could be. The worst nightmare any boy could have.
"Aw man, look, you believe me, it's—it's not like it looks! I—It wasn't my idea, honest!" my anxiety rattled off like a machine gun if desperately appealing to a capital punishment case jury, "My aunt's dying and she wants to have a granddaughter to show off to her friends before she dies except she doesn't have any so she asked me and I couldn't say no because she's dying so I went along to the store with her to—"
"Slow down, slow down!" Craig chuckled, grinning at my mortal chagrin and I wondered how I was going to school next week. "Mean, you're doing this because your aunt's dying?" he asked and I somberly pointed out Aunt Em chatting with her bevy. Craig faced me with fascination and a tweak of something admiring. "Man, that's super kind of you."
My feathery eyelashes blinked. "Huh?"
"Like, I don't know if I could do that with my own mother! You must really like her!"
"Uh, er, yea. She's — great," I admitted with sober appreciation. "She's the only foster mom I had who really cared about my feelings."
He nodded. "She's lucky someone like you was around."
"Yea...." I sniffled, wondering what now. My school life, my social life was good as dead. Rep ruined. All I wanted to do was to run off and bury my head somewhere up a pony's rear. Why doesn't he talk?
"But...I know it's still a super sissy thing to do, getting up like this..." I lamely said to break the tension and maybe reassert the shreds of masculinity in his eyes.
"I don't think so."
I blinked again, this time up at his face. "Huh?"
"I don't think you look sissy at all. In fact, you kinda look terrific."
"Terrific??" I wanted to squash the warmth flattering my shaking head. "Mean super sissy!"
"No way! You're a real doll!"
"Doll??" I blurted then hastily snickered with denial. "I'm a guy, not no 'doll'l! What do you think I am??"
"Pretty," he said almost like a half-blurt then paused as though seeing the bitter fire in my eyes then he smiled, "Not just me. I overheard lots of guys in church and in the parade asking who that cool chick with the old ladies is. I'm not joking. You really look like a million looking like that!"
I wanted to feel flattered, but I had to assert myself! "Uh, yea...but doesn't change that I'm a guy!" I said, then alarmed as I noticed several boys in the crowd watching the races who were instead watching us.
Too many of them.
My padded chest suddenly pounded with dismay. "Oh gosh."
"What?"
"Uh....they...don't know -- who I really am, do they?"
Craig chuckled and sat next to me. "Not in a million years."
"But -- you did," I said with new doubt about my disguise and Craig smiled slightly like weighing a confession and sat across from me.
"Maybe it's because...because I imagined you'd look something like this for a girl."
"Huh?"
"Won't feel insulted if I explain it, would you?"
"How can I feel more embarrassed than I already do??" I anxiously asked and Craig smiled, and I realized that he was taking advantage of my situation to express a long kept notion.
"See...ever since grammar school, I thought you were way too pretty to be a guy, so I'd imagine what you'd look like as a girl -- a lot, and one of the ways was kinda like that!" he stated, nodding at my effect. I didn't know whether to feel even more chagrined or outraged.
"Even though you knew I was a boy??" I quietly said as though to assert my masculinity by questioning his, and Craig lightly chuckled, and instead of feeling humored I felt my ego slighted to the core. "Freak! I'm no — no fag! No matter how I really look!"
"Hey, easy, Pete, I believe it! You don't act like any sissy so that's why I respect you."
"You do??"
"Sure. I could tell by hard you played in gym that you're trying to show that you're just as tough as another guy -- even though you sometimes lose trying to, like at track and basket ball!"
I blinked then on wild impulse laughed at all my staunch attempts to out-macho boys in my class to prove my worth. "I -- uh, yea...well, I -- I try."
"Hey, you're skinny and light -- for a guy. No one expects you to do like a muscle dude, but you do a good job trying, not like a sissy!"
My face warmed at his compliment. "Uh...er, thanks. Man! I'll sure be glad when all this is over so I can change outta this stuff!"
Craig's smile suddenly fell. "Do you have to?"
"What kinda question's that??" I asked and suddenly it was Craig who looked abashed before hastily recovering his nonchalance,
"Er—well...see, I was wondering if—if you'd like to hang around a little and -- and talk. Maybe go to Monster Burgers later."
"Monster Burgers?? Are you kidding??"
"No. I mean it. Order anything you want while we talk about grammar school and stuff. I mean, maybe it's 'bout time to know another since we'd gone to the same school."
"Never came up to me before!" I parried with a suddenly bitter edge and he actually blushed.
"Uh, I -- I was too busy making the sports teams I guess. 'Sides, I hardly saw you."
'No, you just saw me enough to imagine me as a girl every which way!' I inwardly chided him for such a lame bald-faced lie. At worst I was just another dork passing in the hallway to guys like Craig. At least he wasn't part of the bully crowd that teased me once a while, even though he imagined me a girl. Still, that he knew who 'Bunny' really was put me in a precarious position because he wasn't a friend or classmate, and there was no reason why he couldn't broadcast his discovery to the others for a good laugh and ruined my name for good. I was walking on eggs and the last thing I want was to cross the grain of his humor. I had to edge myself out of here to the safety of Aunt Em's car.
I shook my bonnet. "Uh...I -- I can't go like this!"
"Why not? You sure look great."
"I mean -- I mean, I -- I got no money."
"Naw. My treat!"
"Your treat??" I blurted before it dawned my smirk. "Shit, I'm no girl!"
"I know, I know, but since you're already all dressed up like one — and it wasn't your fault—why not just play along like? I mean, it's never gonna happen again your whole life, so why blow a free burger and fries and malts and stuff?"
My smirk mellowed into the fancy of the moment. I barely knew Craig at school, but here he was itching to treat me to lunch!
As a 'doll'.
That tickled something inside me to titter at his assertion as I recalled how Bunny's mirrored reflection roused me, so Craig must be feeling the same way now looking at me -- maybe even worst since I'm almost used to seeing myself! And the trailing looks 'I' got from guys in the mall and today said it was undeniable that I was attractive to boys and it was an eerily smug realization, like something else. Then suddenly, like a bolt from the blue I had a weird notion of what was really going on, and if it was true then my real identity was safe from being exposed by a jokester or blabbermouth, but I had to be sure...
I looked toward the boat race and its spectators and the half-dozen or so boys their regularly glimpsing back at us. Demurely, I gingerly said. "Huh...I -- I'd go with you, except -- I'm kinda -- worried of anyone finding out, you know?"
It was a clumsily sly way of determining my fate or security, true, but I hoped it didn't sound as shallow as it was. Craig shrugged.
"Don't worry about that. I'm not gonna say a word about -- Peter whats-his-name," Craig said, then cocked a smile. "Huh, you got a name to go with all that?"
"Name? Uh, 'Bunny'," I said, feeling abashed saying it even though my effect deserved more. "My aunt called me that."
"Cute -- just like how you look," Craig said with a suave smile and suddenly I felt a bloom of new apprehension to put him in his place.
"You know, normal guys don't go dreaming of other guys all dressed like this!" I lightly chaffed, waving over my effect and Craig chuckled and eyed me.
"Well, normal guys don't go looking like princesses either!" he reposted and I fought down a weird ticklily blush and haughtily shrugged my slim shoulders, bouncing my raven curls.
"You must've been staring after me awfully hard and long before you came up to me like this!" I semi-smugly said and he didn't answer. "Do you goo-goo eye every girl like that?"
Craig lightly chuckled. "Uh, well, I'm a red-blooded guy, so why not?"
"So you recognized me by fluke, right?"
"Uh, sure."
"But you came up to me in front of all your friends, even though you knew I was guy?"
"I -- I -- er...what's that to do with it?"
"Well, can I ask something real personal like?" I inquired, holding back cautious misgivings at being so brash. "You got any girlfriend?"
Craig winced as though surprised. "Girlfriend? Uh, sure, I -- I gotta girlfriend. What's that to do with it?"
"What's her name?"
"Name? Er, her name's -- name's Yvonne. Yea, Yvonne."
"Liar," I said because his pauses and jarred expression sounded it
"Huh? What'd you call me?"
"Because jocks in the eight-grade want other jocks to think they're already studs hanging with girls, even though it's all just gym locker bragging because guys our age are mostly still scared or puzzled by girls! So the only reason you're asking to treat me at Monster Burger is 'cause I'm really guy, right -- 'stud'??"
Craig frowned like I was a suspense spoiler then chuckled aloud and glimpsed at his friends then eyed me like a sour exposed fraud. "Think you have me all figured out, uh? What makes you think I'm scared of girls?"
"'Cause if you really had a girlfriend you wouldn't dare risk her hearing that you tried to hit on another girl! Every girl in junior high says that!"
Craig blushed and bridled. "Who says I'm 'hitting' on you?? I'm no -- fag!"
"Then how come you're trying to get me to go with you for a snack and stuff -- except maybe to make your friends over there think that you're such a stud that you can waltz up to any girl and get her to go with you?"
Craig smirked as though vexed and impressed by my logic. "You're smarter than you look, princess Barbie, but even if what you say was true, what's wrong with that? Least you get free eats -- and no one else knows your secret."
I snickered at his lame threat, feeling on an even playing field that was propped up by a smug cocky swell in my head and chest. "You're not going to tattle on me. I'm way too nice like this for you to blow being seen with me!"
Craig snorted. "'Nice' uh? Sure doesn't sound like any real guy's under there -- 'Bunny'!" he quipped as though admonishing and deriding my masculinity, and for moment my thoughts stumbled as though tripped by a element of truth.
"I don't need to prove who I really am to you or anybody! I know who I am! And suppose I just say no? You going to blab who I really am to your friends? Who'd believe it unless you drag me to the boy's bathroom and yanked my dress, uh??"
Checkmated by social rules and street manners, Craig smirked again, a funny sour smirk. "Cute! You wouldn't be so freaking sassy if I hadn't been keeping all kinds of bullies off your pretty back all along!" he muttered aloud to my blink aback.
"Huh? Keeping bullies off my --?? What do you mean?"
"Uh, I -- I -- forget it," Craig blurted back, this time almost abashedly dismissing his play. "I was just -- mouthing off!"
"Why would you say something crazy like that then?? Tell me!"
"I said forget it, okay? Forget everything!"
"No! Why'd you say that? Why you so skittish all a-sudden?"
"Er, excuse me, Bunny --??" discretely called Aunt Em's voice behind us, a smile fighting to break through her lips. Not far away, a knot of her bee friends politely waited. "I don't mean to interrupt, Bunny, but I'm leaving with my bee soon. So, you've found a friend?"
"Friend? Uh...uh, er -- yes, Aunt Em," I said with a sigh of relief before Craig's suddenly sheepish look. I was safe. Not even a bully was going to expose me with a guardian adult was around, even if I really was a fake fem. That was as crass and unthinkable as calling girls by locker room names -- at least in this era.
"Uh, Aunt Em, this is Craig. We -- go to the same school."
"Ma'am," he said with polite nod and Aunt Em beamed at him.
"Quite the spiffy young man you are! Are you friends with Bunny in school too?"
"Uh -- I --"
"We're just kind of friends, Aunt Em..." I gazed him with a fresh smile as a nameless gratitude at his odd statement mollified my regard. "But we're going to have lunch together to talk about old things a lot more now."
Craig quizzically blinked at me as though he wasn't expecting anything more from dashed plans then brokenly chuckled. "Uh, yea. The -- school's got a nice cafeteria, ma'am."
"My, my! That's such a pleasure to hear!!" Aunt Em said, popping out her large Polaroid camera and opening its back door to tear the damp black and white photo out the back.
I sucked a gasp. Aunt Em chuckled. "Yes, not bad. I took it from down the pond with that zoom lens setting, but isn't that just charming??"
"Wish I had one," Craig sighed aloud then faced me with a wistful look. "Uh...well, it was nice meeting you, Ma'am."
"A pleasure, young man, and thank you for being so gentlemanly with my granddaughter!"
"Er -- sure, ma'am," Craig answered as his eyes quizzically darted between us as though unsure whether Aunt Em was a dizzy old woman harboring a transvestite boy or whether I was a lying genuine girl who just happened to look like a dork he knew.
"See you at school, Craig!" I reminded like a light tease, gathering my full skirt up off the bench and Craig suddenly looked so sober, so disappointed, so cheated, and even as I thought back to how Aunt Em's full mirror earlier stirred and awed me, the corner of my eye spotted a dozen far away eyes trained on us with soured anticipation. A blend of impishness and sympathy swelled my padded pounding blouse and for a few moments my wildest whimsey escaped the bonds of self-control and briskly sneaked a quick peck on his cheek.
"Huh??" Craig blurted, looking as started as I felt about my maverick impulse, yet it felt like he deserved it.
"Thanks for not telling anyone," I softly said with a smile and wave and moving off to follow Aunt Em and her chatty bee, and before I turned my head the final time I spotted far beyond Craig a half-dozen junior jocks gawking and whistling and whooping it up.
Yes.
I think I just made Craig's week.
Wild hidden giggles!
After Aunt Em dropped off the last member of her bee and I moved up to the front passenger seat, I took out the photograph to awe at Craig sitting by my pretty raven-maned sister under a cute wide bonnet with folded gloves nestled her dress' billowy skirt and sleek ivory-filmed ankles coyly crossed under her bench. I was totally unaware of such a prim poise while talking guy with him, or the intense way we were looking at other even while carping back so.
"So, I hope you enjoy yourself today as much as I'm proud of you, Bunny!" Aunt Em said.
"It was—okay," I said with ego-muted enthusiasm as I settled back in my lacy nest.
Yea. It was going to be real interesting after Easter vacation to see how Craig was going to act towards me at school after that sisterly peck -- which I hoped he knew was just a joke. I think. I mean, I certainly didn't mean to peck another guy, though I think I know why I really did it, as if deep gratitude had jumped ahead of conscience and ego on impulse. I suspect I owe Craig for a lot more than he's going to admit to me, but he's already said enough to tell me that I'd long a closet admirer -- and protector. That notion tickled up a thrill and I wondered whether he'd still be as willing to treat me to Monster Burgers as my normal self. After all I was still the same person, just different in threads, right?
So why don't I believe that?
Again I stared at the photograph on my lap's gloves and ogled Craig's comely companion and felt unreasonably jealous of him, even though intellectually I knew this pretty chick was me.
No.
Another, hidden secret me. Not a sissy or a fairy, but someone else entirely...
I tittered and basked a smug warm rush, and I had to admit a weird tingly thrill at being so snugly wrapped in such a soft pretty envelope where beneath my primly spread skirt, my breezy ivory-filmed thighs and calves rubbed together with a strange delicious silky slickness. I licked the waxy gloss of my lips and felt the wispy silky curls brushing my cheeks.
So strange, yet so titillating...
Beneath my awe I felt a familiar soft breathless excitement I only began experiencing in the last few weeks whenever I ogled the leggiest and prettiest girls in the schoolyard or even just thought about them in bed and whenever it happened—like right now deep my skirt; I could feel a warm seep escaping that will quickly chill into a damp spot, only now this heady swelling sensation was growing past that into a throbbing knot of giddy breathless anticipation...
I barely contained a giggle of rapture and delight.
He called me a 'doll'.
A guy who knew I was one too yet it still didn't matter.
Was I that beguiling??
Yea, dolling up a girl wasn't so bad, not really, between all the awesome grownup compliments and flattery and getting hit by a junior jock who wanted to treat me out even though he knew I was really a guy. Were my girl-looks really that awesome?? Could this dainty getup really turn macho jocks to jello??
Impishly, wistfully, I wondered whether I made him seep too...
"Bunny...I want to thank you so for this day," Aunt Em said with a soft choke between breaths. "I felt so proud, like I really had a granddaughter rolled up in one, and you charmed everyone like a perfect little lady. I'm so happy I don't know what else to say. Thank you!"
"You're welcome, Aunt Em," I answered, unslighted and unabashed by being complimented as a 'little lady', not when that pose gave so many people so much pleasure and delight. The girl sitting next to Craig was a space-time wrap parallel twin apart from my existence, a mystery miss my guy-self could never encounter myself, and I could never share the same awe and enthrall they all felt looking at her. I felt almost — cheated.
Like Craig.
"Aunt Em..." I said, carefully choosing my words, "If it's alright with you, I...I don't mind being Bunny again now and then — if you want."
Aunt Em's eyes went nova with happiness and with one arm hugged my lacy shoulder close. "Yes dear, all you want! And in fact, I've some wonderful news for you so I'll be able to teach you how to handle new 'friends' like that nice young man for a long time!"
"O wow!!" I blurted with bubbly happiness, and even as I moved into her grateful press I wondered whether I -- a junior jock wannabe -- could really indulge Bunny's sumptuous virtues and titillating adventures in the strange world of girls without incurring the damning vice of fagdom and sissihood. I was sure that with a Halloween mindset I could tickle the dragon's tail and dip the warm thrill of romantic girlhood without lasting contamination like stealing a drag of a cigarette or a swig of dad's forgotten beer can, but I knew in burning the candle at both ends I had to stay out the middle.
Yea.
Bunny was sure gonna be one interesting thrill.
END
Just how low n' lovely would a strapping red-blooded junior jock go for a motorbike?
This is a previously shelved raw 2002 story I've just found and thrown up here unretouched for this apt special day, so if it seems rough and choppy that's why, as I'm currently unloading my HD's entire TG inventory to the web. Happy Easter!
"You know, that Easter "Bonny" Pageants' up at the mall Saturday!" Jake said with a braggy junior jock wink during our seventh-grade's lunch in our junior high cafeteria. "Since I'm picking out a new Daisy BB air rifle at Walmart over there, I might as well hang and check out all the chicks too!"
The Easter Bonny Pageant, stuck between Easter and St. Patrick's Day and a celebration of both, was a "walk-in" beauty pageant held in Springdale Mall's central atrium court where Santa perched kids on his knee only three months before. As long as a girl or woman was aptly all dolled up in Easter finery, they could sashay out the platform stage for an applause poll from shoppers and even win a cheap rhinestone crown. Lots of "pageant vets" as well as nervous and eager newbies turned up all lacy and froth-frilled to the max as Brownie points in their pageant resumes or for a shot modeling for a mall store sponsor. The pageant drew shoppers and mall patrons alike, and lots of junior high and high school dudes too, mainly exercising their wannabe-stud jollies by drooling at pageant princesses like a bear over a beehive.
I smirked at how Jake loved to needle an animal lover with his BB sniper brags. "Better stick with hittin' squirrels--the ones that are sleepin' when you're hunting them!"
"Oh yea? So how come I got all them trophies for whacking chipmunks and rabbits and ravens and stuff?"
"That's because they're so small they figure you can't see them!"
"Tell that to the doe I bagged with my dad last week!"
"That was blind luck and because your dad was showing you his real gun!"
"Hey, I can shot and stalk game on my own easy! Freak, I can sneak up close enough to a deer to ride 'em!"
"Sure! I bet I could sneak up on you and bead your butt just with my BB pistol and you'd never see me coming!"
I snorted. "Yea? In a pig's eye! You can't even hit a barn door with that cheap pistol thirty feet away!"
"Bet I can! I'll use a red paint pellet to mark your butt to prove it!" Jake asserted then blinked impishly. "Would you do all my homework for a year if I did?"
"I already do half your homework helping you!" I snickered, then a bell rang in my head. "Okay, if I tag you before you hit me, I get your Honda motorbike!"
"You kiddin'?"
"'Fraid?"
"No way!" Jake cockily said. "Okay, I'll be at the mall all day, and if you pat my shoulder before I zing you, you got the bike!"
"Bet!" I cried, sealing the deal with a high-five.
Man! I wanted a motorbike like nine lives, especially since my family was so wallet-strapped when dad lost his job all I got for Christmas was a three-year-old Xmas card.
A Honda XP motorbike!!
No more 'poor boy' jock!
Yea!
Now...just how the freak am I gonna do it??
I moaned aloud in our TV room; "Oh man, a year of doing that jerk's homework! What an ass I am making jumping at that bet!"
"Well, there's your answer. lil' bro!" Colleen, my high school cheerleader sister, coyly chirped during Babylon Five where a sly disguised alien assassin was sneaking up on the unwary hero in a crowd. "Jake's on the lookout for any short scrawny guy sneaking up on him, right?"
I smirked. "I'm not 'scrawny'! Just -- skinny!"
"Whatever. So why don't you disguise yourself??"
"Disguise? You kiddin'? That's the first thing he'd be looking for! He's a hunting nut with his hunting nut dad! They camouflage themselves so good sneaking up on ducks while duck hunting that they can just grab the stupid birds without shooting their guns! So he'd spot me in disguise a mile away!"
"Not if you were part of that pageant!"
"What??"
"Well, he wouldn't suspect a girl until he saw your face up close and you tagged him!"
I blurted. "You crazy?? I ain't dressing like no girl!!"
"Well, you did that playing Halloween tag once, swapping my witch costume to sneak up on Frankie and winning his grab bag."
I grinned at that literally sweet sneaky victory. "Yea, that was neat! But that's not the same! That was some stupid costume, not no real -- sissy girl shit!"
Colleen shrugged. "Just trying to help. Didn't know you liked doing extra-credit homework that much."
"Like shit!" I gushed, then pondered a diluted notion. "Then, maybe I could dress a little like a girl, like they do in school along with one of your play wigs. That's not too embarrassing."
She smirked. "Right! If you show up there just in jeans and sneakers you'll still look boy enough for him to take a second look and nail you. You got gotta go deep incognito, lil' bro'! Look so different that he'd never suspect you till it's too late. Like I'm talking serious makeover, not Halloween -- and you ought make it work easy!"
I didn't like her implication, even though it was long a bitter knowledge I gritted through half my life. "Hey! I don't look like any girl -- in guy OR girl shit!!"
"Like, you're no Sylvester Stallione, bro'! Hey, you'll grow out of those -- kiddie looks after you get past puberty, guy, but since you already look like an overgrown third grader, why don't you take advantage of it to get out of your jam? Or how late do you'll be up doing homework?"
I smirked at her damned ego-bruising logic. "I ain't -- shit! It -- wouldn't work! He'd spot me looking super-fairy in a red second!"
"Knowing Jake, he's gonna be too busy drooling at all the girls on that pageant line like the bogus jock he is, so his attention will be split eighty-twenty looking out for you. With the perfect guise, you ought be able to sneak up on him easy! Of course, if it's not perfect you'll be his slave all year."
I muttered. "I ain't doing goin' up no pageant stage, no way!"
"You don't have to! Just look like one of the contestants milling around, and you slowly kinda drift up behind his back with your face turned away and 'gotcha'!"
"I..I don't --"
"Besides he'd never suspect it's you, since he knows that you're as macho as he is, so he'd assume this would be the last thing you'd ever think of!"
I grudgingly nodded and groaned. "Still...I couldn't let him see me all decked out like some pageant girl! Shit, I'd be a fag, not a stud!"
"Hey, if he's all the stalker hunter you say he is, all he'll see is a sly stealth-disguise beat him, not whether you're any sissy doing it. I mean even macho detectives disquise themselves as lady decoys sometimes, right? Besides, afterwards you won't have to sit in back all your friends' motorbikes -- like a girl, right??"
Wincing abashed, I had to bitterly nod at that humiliating fact of my gang life, then smirked. "How come you're suddenly so gung-ho at helping me out?"
Colleen curved a Cheshire Cat smile. "Well, maybe because for the first time I'll get to chance to groom a lil' sister!"
"Mean the last!! And I ain't no 'sister'!!" I snorted, shaking my head between a rock and a hard place.
Man, like is anything worth this?
Come Saturday morning, Colleen raided the back of her closet and dusted off her old fluffy-lacy Easter outfit which was roughly my size and went to work on me, attacking me with an arsenal brushes and creams and do-dads.
Like any normal red-blooded American guy I would've balked at getting made over into a girl, especially by his own sister, but my male ego wasn't all that ruffled since it was all for a one hour spy mission for a juicy new motorbike, and I was sure I hadn't any homo kinks in my male self-esteem that'd be seduced into fagdom by girl drag. Besides, we used to help each other dress up as clowns and monsters and pirates and other outrageous things for Halloween and parties from birthday one, so she took my grudging nod at her suggestion in stride -- along with a little incentive of "sharing" my spoils like 'sharing' the bike.
Mom had drafted Colleen into the kiddie pageant circuit as soon as she learned to walk with all the usual stage mom reasons of fame and fortune and early retirement, so Colleen knew cosmetics and makeovers and fashion like second nature. Though she managed to break out of that scene during high school, her pageant skills helped made her the high school belle and cheerleader captain. I also suspected that she'd been waiting for this chance for a long time!
Having me peel down to male ego-sparing underpants, Colleen had me raise both legs to carefully roll vanilla-frosted tights down my legs without a run, which somehow felt different from Robin Hood play tights. Looked it too, like that made my once scrawny legs seem magically more sleek and cutely alien. Felt different too.
Like the silky-slick way my nylon-filmed thighs rubbed over another...
"It's to help fill out the dress's top right!" she explained to my balk when she whipped out a padded beginner bra with a stupid tiny bow between the cups.
Damn!
At least I wasn't wearing any panties under my tights!
Then came a crisp crinoline slip with tiers of crepe taffeta that went down over over my head to spread out below the waist in a lacy bell that felt like I was in a fluffy nest when sat before her vanity desk where she creamed my face over then hot toweled it off then a powder puff beating my face into submission under scented velvety pancake. She then prodded me to open my eyes wide as her tweezers parked feathery eyelashes up against my own, then she tapped my mouth to go wide as she brushed around my lips a waxy coral gloss. Her fake pearly fingernails were glued over my stubby ones next then she stood me up and dropped over my head the filmy star of my makeover and after primping it down she she draped over my scraggy locks a wealth of raven curls, finished up by clamping pearl earrings on my lobes and a necklace around my neck.
After worming my vanilla-filmed toes into a pair of snug pale emerald patent leather lo-heel pumps, Colleen stood back and nodded with a smug grin. "Good thing you're no Rambo! Check it out, Cinderella!"
I rose to her closet door's full-length mirror and blinked a gasp.
Omigosh!!
OMIGOSH!!!
Stunned, I gawked back at a knockout alien reflection, scanning it up from the cute buckled toes of lime-green skimmer pumps rooting a set of nicely turned beige-filmed ankles and awesomely slender calves and nice knees brushed by the frilly hems of a tiered accordion-pleated organdy skirt of a mint-pastel chiffon dress whose mildly mounded bodice's gauzy pouf shoulders were draped by roiling blue-sheened raven curls spilling from under a wide-brimmed straw bonnet crowning a doll-perfect with gaping coral-glossed lips and lush lashes fringing and enhancing wide gray-blue eyes.
No.
This was no Bozo!
It was my glamorous twin sister!
I often witnessed such makeover transformations during Colleen's pageants when plain Jane girls checking into pageants later appeared on stage as stunning princesses and mini Vegas showgirls looking years beyond their preteen fact. Unless you've actually seen it you'd never believe it.
Suddenly I felt a weird "thump" deep my frothy skirt that I only experienced while checking out leggy Joyce Schaefer in her gym togs at Phys Ed and a surge of chagrin rushed me hoping my sister couldn't tell or know.
"Jake's no way going to see you coming!" Colleen clucked like a used-car salesman. "Now I can ride to the mall anytime I like!"
"Yea, when MY bike's free!" I reminded, asserting a little macho to get over the mint pastel princess I'd been turned into.
"Colleen really went overboard! Better not show your father," Mom warned while giving us a lift to the mall, enchanted after her shock. "He'll likely ship you off to military school!"
I smirked, my white knit gloves kneading into my fluffy skirt while nervous second thoughts started to well to almost skittish qualms stepping out of the car and being abandoned by Mom and Colleen on their mall quest. Sure, Colleen briefly drilled me on "how not to prance like a girl" by walking with a slight rocking gait and how to move around my arms more and keep my knees and ankles welded together while sitting to better "pass," but ironically it only exacerbated my stage frights. It was one thing pranking as witches and Snow White for a kid's costume party but another turning up around thousands of shoppers not in on the joke that you hide your explanation and embarrassment behind. Jake would understand when I surprised him, but I doubted any guys from school would, especially since half of them already teased me about my "third-grade looks," which was an unsaid euphemism not for not merely looking boyishly youthful but "pretty." Being a school jester who strove to strut his masculinity threw off most bullies and cruel fairy taunts, but I don't think they'd overlook my looks all dolled-up this fine and serious as a mere joke.
There was something else unsettlingly disturbing about my delicate snug envelope. It was hard to pin on, but rather than making me feel very self-aware of myself, I felt oddly divorced my physical person, almost like the subtle weight having to constantly assert my masculinity in stride and demeanor had lifted and there was someone weaker beneath, like you took a clunky football outfit off a shrimpy dork. In a way it was kind of relaxing and breezy, and the sensation of being clad in swishy silk and clingy chiffon. My male ego sensed an indefinable danger and broke off my self-indulgence and I drifted before a storefront window and stopped to take another critical stock of the winsome stranger in my reflection.
Geezus!!
Colleen really did the job on me! It was like she finally let loose fifteen years of wanting to play dress-up with a sister all at once.
Again I found my attention drifting beyond awe as another dull thump deep my tight underpants snapped me out from my breathless incestuously narcissistic reverie. That was funny, to even for a few moments forget reality and drool over your own knockout twin sister. Most guys once or twice wonder what they'd be like as girls, and while I went out of my way shying such a wild notion, to see the proof of my wonder in stark 3-D like this was awesome. While I was no Marilyn Monroe impersonator, my general build and face was just gender neutral enough to be shoved light-years in her direction by all this makeup and gear, and seeing my gender's anchor that tenuous and fascinating was at once disturbing and awesome.
Man! It was a good thing I was a chronic practical joker or else I wouldn't have the guts to mock myself like this!
After ten minutes hugging corners and shadows getting used to my public effect and seeing that I drew not much more notice than others strolling around in their pre-Easter finery, I followed the signs to the Easter Bonny Pageant where I saw a platform stage already busy with dolled up contestants sashaying up and down the "runway". I surveyed the cordoned off onlookers and shoppers surrounding the event and wondered whether Jake was around, but then he would have to be. He wasn't going to miss any chance of taking homework pressures off him so he could spend more time at after school gym. I long soberly suspected that he was mostly my "buddy" because I tutored him and helped him get through tests and not just because we liked video games, though in return I escaped taunts and teases and school bullies under his invisible shield of buddyhood.
Though I was literally barely recognizable to myself, I wasn't sure how well I could sneak up on him. He'd be looking around like a hawk. My only hope was to keep my bonnet's brim low and innocently drift by him.
My heart jumped!
Jake!
Right up front on the spectator line gawking his eyes out at teen lookers in rainbow lace and satins and curvaceous gowns sashaying before the applauding onlookers, and every few seconds he'd scan around like an alerted hawk.
I felt like a deer that had to jump the hunter.
Was a motorbike really worth this?
I nibbled my waxy-coated coral-glossed lower lip in apprehension and hoped that Jake only saw my looks as merely a ploy and not a fancy. Fresh anxiety gripped me as the corners of my eyes caught sight of junior high and high school dudes throwing me long sticky looks and I was seized with the dread that their X-ray vision spotted my truth easy and my reputation as a straight guy in school was doomed.
Tipping my bonnet low, I started to drift toward my clueless quarry's turned back along with meandering shoppers, my heart freezing as he twice scanned past me.
Damn! That was close!!
Twenty feet...fifteen feet...ten...five...
My glove leapt out and tapped his turned shoulder.
"Tag!!" I blurted with victory and relief.
Jake gave a small startled jump then shook his head as he started to face me, muttering in exasperation. "Shit! How'd the fuck you get so close--??" Then fully facing me, his eyes bulged and he jumped even higher.
"Huh??" he blurted in surprise then he suddenly smiled funny with that fake suave way that high school sophomore jock wanna-bees used hitting on freshmen girls, "Er, sorry! Hey, nice outfit!..." His smoothy line skidded to a stop as he blinked several times as though letting something vague in my pancaked effect sink in.
"What the--?? Holy shit!" he blurted aloud.
"What's wrong??" I instinctively blurted in alarm before his gawking eyes.
"Ke--Kee--Kevin??" he stammered as though still unsure. I smirked.
"Com'on, Jake! You can tell!"
"Shit! You ARE Kevin!" he blurted amazed, open mouthed as a landed bass. "Holy shit!!"
"Knock it off, Jake!"
"Holy shit, no, I'm not messing around! Holy shit, Kev! You're--You're awesome!"
I smirked and he shook his head.
"No, no kidding, Kev! Shit! I saw her--er, you passing around several times a while ago--"
My padded chest suddenly sunk,
"--But I never guessed it was you! I thought it was just another fox!"
I blushed. Me--a "fox"?? I let it go to dump or savor and shrugged. "So, guess I got the bike, huh?" I reaffirmed.
"Sure, you got it alright." Jake said as though passing on a pencil. still taking me in. "Jesus, I can't believe this, Kev! You're—you're—awesome!"
"Put a sock in it, huh?"
"No, I mean it! You're awesome! I always wondered what—er, forget it!"
"What were you about to say?"
"Uh, nothing. Er, just—er, that I don't know how you got the guts to guzzy up that nice, you know?"
"Because it's just a disguise, that's all. Like wearing a Bozo clown or pirate costume or something."
He chuckled. "Fuck, you ain't nobody's Bozo! In fact I bet you can even pass that pageant easy!"
"Sure!"
"I mean it, Kev! Go for it! It's open to anybody and you're sure dolled up for it!"
"I don't think so."
"Shit, it'd be so great!" Jake almost looked desperate; "Look, bet, okay?"
I sighed. "Another?"
"I'll throw in my Epson copy-printer! You always wanted something like that, right?"
"Sure...but why?"
"Because--because I wanna remember what your twin sister could've been like doing it."
"That's dumb."
"Alright, my old Macintosh too, okay?"
"You putting me on?"
"Just three minutes, Kev! Com'on! Isn't this the kinda gag you would've killed for to try when you were a kid?"
"Sure, as a kid!" I riposted then nibbled my waxy lower lip again mulling the stage and what he said. True, I might never get another dare like this, putting it over hundreds of people and gawking guys who were probably feeling more enchanted and excited by my effect than I was by my reflection.
I had to giggle inside, wondering if they were straining tight underbriefs like I had! A bunch of blind jocks drooling over a guy! The ultimate sly prank! It was too juicy to pass up! Heck, it's just a minute or two! Then reap in my goodies!
Eagerly game, I turned to face Jake and just caught his eyes jerking away from my face. I wanted to smirk but seeing him so fascinated and fawning me so was so deliciously sly and smug that I just basked his homage. "All...alright. Just hope no one from school's here!"
"Don't worry, they won't know you from Kevin from snot!" Jake said in a funny sure way, gently clasping my gauzy shoulders steering me to the woman behind the pageant registration desk.
"Name please?"
"Name? Er...er...Blythe Larkingdale!" I professed, trying not to blurt into laughter in her face. She jotted my name and gestured me to the short line offstage where contestants waited on line to take a long stroll around a short runway. I was nibbling the waxy coat off my lip when it was my turn and I steeled myself and spread a copied broad silly smile and sauntered off in Colleen's smoothly rocking sashay. I kept my eyes over the crowd and down the central gallery so I wouldn't turn chicken before a thousand eyes and hazily I heard applause. Then every contestant got applause.
Only this one sounded like the hooting thunder inside a basketball game.
I instantly assumed it was some kind of commotion in the mall, maybe a security guard chasing down some purse snatcher or something and my eyes dropped to see and saw wide smiles and applause directed at me!
Me!
I made my circle back to the stage and was about to step off when the curvy sequined lady emcee grabbed my shoulders and prodded me to go out again.
Kidding!!
More applause and hooting and my former apprehension wafted into a kind of buoyant smug relief. The emcee steered me to the side of the stage with three or four other held-back girls and teens where I waited as nervousness well while other girls did their turn then my select tiny group was ushered out the runway before the crowd which hooted while the emcee announced each our names and rewards, then finally asked me to take down my bonnet off my fake fluffy raven curls for a rhinestone tiara.
Tiara!!!
"Don't take it off, it looks awesome on you!" Jake later said at our McDonalds' table in the food court as I reached for the silly thing. I simpered.
"So stupid!" I muttered, denying the regard freshly heaped me even though I felt a soft giggily high at fooling everyone there. "Anyone could win shit over there!"
"Hey, that crowd had eyes and said you're a looker! Even nice legs."
"Sock it, uh?"
"Hey, all those people can't be wrong!"
"Half the crowd at a ball game are wrong! Man, can't wait till I get out of this shit!"
"Don't--!" Jake blurted then sat back with a sheepish grin. "I mean, why pull the plug on the joke so early? Besides, where'd you dig up that name? 'Blythe Larkingdale' ."
"Colleen said to use it in case somebody asked. She said some people would get the joke. Not me!"
A businessman came up. "Hello! Are you Blythe Larkingdale from the pageant?"
"Yo! See a crown??" Jake japed.
"I'm the manager of J.C. Penney here. We co-sponsored the pageant and the rewards and contracts like this one; would you like to model a week for our Easter week promo?"
My mouth fell open. "M--M--Model??"
"She'll do it!" Jake blurted gleefully. "Er, I'm her brother and mom said if a modeling offer comes it's a go!"
The store manager beamed like headlights. "Splendid! Have you and mom turn up early tomorrow and we'll get you modeling lovely!"
"But--But--" but I was stammering into thin air. "What the fuck you tell him that for??"
"Shh! Watch your mouth, man! You're a princess!"
"Freak that!"
"Hey, it's only for a week on Easter vacation!"
"Yea--Vacation! Know what that means??"
"You got any idea how much models make? Even for a week? Maybe a thousand!"
My peeve went suspended animation. "Thousand? You're fucking!"
"Nope. That's why your mom has to sign--and she will! See, I'm doing you a big favor!"
"No favor! He thinks I'm some stupid girl!"
"Well, you are a pretty chick--kinda," he said to my smirk. "Com'on, Kev. Sure beats raking leaves and cleaning garages. Besides, think of the big joke you'll be putting over everyone!"
I mulled and muttered. He was right at that. There was no way mom was gonna pass up a thousand dollars, even at the expense of my suffering through another outrageous prank. Still, my cut would put me ahead by two summer jobs, and I had to admit, the prospect of my pretty pose putting it over throngs of shoppers and dummies and jocks and bullies was a little smugly exciting.
But I acted it wasn't. "So, how much you want out of it?"
Jake smiled funny. "Not a dime!"
"Bullshit. I never seen you so excited over me since I made you those crib notes for your final!"
"I mean it, cross my heart!"
"Yea, stick an axe in it and triple cross over it."
"Make it an arrow instead," he quipped with a sly grin.
End of Chapter One?
The 12-year-old male member of an Irish dance troupe must second for his ill sister to help them win a contest in the St.Patrick's Day Parade in New York.
SHAMrock Stand-in
By Deela Eon
"You're all blarney!" my slighted twelve-year-old male ego balked at Maureen
and my other Celtic Folk Dance Club troupe members; almost all girls from
nine to fourteen save me in our dance studio right then, only the somber
looks of despair and desperation in their faces assuaging my bridle of a major
ego insult.
"Sean--" their pleas chorused.
"No way!!"
"Sean McCullough, you're our only chance!" pleaded Mary, which was
bizarre because the teen was always so pretty and cheerful. "Noreen's out
sick but you know your sister's solo routine perfectly! You practiced with her
at home from the start!"
"Only because mom made me partner her--just like how mom being friends
with Mrs. Mahoney drafted me in this club!" I bitterly snapped. "I'll do your
chores for a month!" Maureen gushed. "Two! Three!!
Sean, we've worked hard all year!"
Despite my ire I had to admit that they--we all--worked damn hard perfecting
our 1976 St. Patrick's Day Parade dance routines, which must've been hard
given the interests other kids had. Still, their basic disregard of my ego and
pride stung to the quick. "I still can't see why I can't do the jig being
myself!" I grudgingly contended.
"Sean, you know why!" eldest teen Aislynn said. "The grand marshal's
expecting someone to perform the traditional solo jig for him!"
"Well maybe it's time to break tradition!"
Fionna added, "We know how hard it is for boys to dance in kilts out in front
of people--"
"Yea, that's why there's only three of us--and now you all want me to look
even worst?"
"Sean, you've always been only a strapping lad to us," Caitlin said like an
assuaging flatter, only its intent fell flat.
I snickered. "Right. Like you all would've asked husky ole' Kevin to take
Kelly's place if she got sick?"
"They're not twins--like you and Noreen," Patricia mildly stated.
"We're not all that twin! She's got hazel eyes, mine's green. She's brunette,
I'm redhead!"
"Faking hair's easy and no one's going to notice eyes except up close."
"You're all nuts! Besides how you gonna explain being a boy short?"
"Simple; you just caught the flu instead of Noreen," Aislynn coolly directed.
"Yea, nobody will ever be able to tell, not even Mrs. Mahoney!!" gushed
Eileen, the nine-year-old then stupidly twittering, "I mean we can barely tell
between you now!"
I shot her a hot look and everyone fell silently sheepish at her gaff, all
knowing that was a very sore point with me. My mind's-eye self-image was
radically different from what others saw, but it didn't mean I wouldn't face
the reality of mirrors.
"Sean--" Maureen said with diplomatic reverse-psychology, "If you backed
out we'd understand, but don't just because you think we'd laugh at you--
which we'd never do!"
I curtly demurred, "Forget my feelings; Don't you all think this whole idea's
sneaky and dishonest??"
"Yes, it is," spoke up Tara, level-headed as her voice. "But so long as the
grownups don't know anything about it, we've honored the Marshal's
special request for a solo dancer for his choosing us as lead dance troupe this
year."
"Look, what's the shame in saying that the dancer's down with a cold, huh?"
"The pity's that all Noreen's talents aren't," Lori sourly uttered and I was
about to stomp out right then but their words rang true; the troupe's colleens
never snickered or giggled at my scrawny frame and delicate features like the
kids at junior high, and they never looked down on me except maybe for
Noreen, but then sisters don't count. Still, I'd my pubescent male pride and a
reputation at school to keep--which wasn't all that great since both Noreen
and I went there.
"Look, I wanna help, I really do," I demurred even though their faces didn't
swallow it, "but if this gets out I gotta face all the guys at school after
tomorrow and after that. I'm real sorry."
"Sure," Aislynn moved up, her pretty face drawn with valiant futility. "Then
right now and all night if need be, show me the routine!"
I snickered. "Took us five months to get our steps right!"
"I'd rather look the fool trying then apart when I could! Well?" she asserted,
boring into my eyes if to shake me to start, and I gnashed my lip before the
grim faces of a dozen desperate determined girls and suddenly, ironically, I
felt like a yellow-spined sissy even worst than the one they wanted me to be.
"Aww, shit..." I muttered, punching my thigh with misgivings. "Man! I
hope the Hibernians don't catch wind of this!"
"Stop crowding behind us like you're hiding!" Kathy admonished me in the
middle of Fifth Avenue over the parade's din of brass bands and bagpipes
and droning thousands lining the sidewalk as our reels trailed behind the
watchful lead of our studio's matronly director, Mrs. Mahoney.
"Not 'hiding'" I sniffed back to Kathleen as I shuttled out among the girls
high kicking and skipping while step-dancing and slip jigs in their full lushly
embroidered velvet dresses and shawls and waist tassels, white gloves, frilly
white anklets and threaded dance slippers.
Just like I was--except for one of Maureen's curly raven wig over my own
auburn shag and wearing boys' briefs instead of panties as a last anchor of
male pride.
It was sobering enough sneaking into Noreen's costume at the studio before
the parade and seeing how snugly it fit my lithe and leggy frame, but as
Aislynn and Maureen briskly did my makeover I had to admit that the raven-
tressed green-eyed 'girl' in my mirror only passingly resembled my raven-
haired hazel-eyed sister, forget any boy or myself much to my male pride's
chagrin.
My sole comfort in all this, if you want to call it that, was how I so totally
and unquestionably passed as one of the girls in public. It was my greatest
nightmare that someone outside the troupe would detect some giveaway male
trait in my disguise and kill my social life forever, but I passed with utterly
invisible ease. It felt awesome and disturbing that even Mahoney seemed
completely blind at recognizing me even with my un-Noreen green eyes and
freckles. That Kevin and Bob in their black jackets and saffron kilts regarded
me with sober sympathy wasn't all that surprising considering, but there was
also a peculiar awe in the shy way they looked at me which felt
uncomfortable and indefinably unbecoming.
As the parade went on I felt ever more chagrined as my fake long curls
bounced about my shoulders and my full pleated skirt flounced high from my
open breezy legs, almost flashing my boys' briefs to the world with every
kick and swirl. For the first time I really appreciated why kilts were woven of
twill instead of light velvet skirts were! By parade's end though I was too
tired to care, but I still had one more thing to do, and that was the solo
performance that drafted me into this mess in the first place. So before a
grandstand packed with dignitaries and politicians and white-tufted parade
Grand Marshal Jim O'Donnell's chubby ruddy face, I came forward from the
bated-breaths of my troupe and performed the solo slip jig I honed alongside
Noreen. It was complex and very vigorous, but I wanted Noreen to look
good very badly and though I didn't have her innate grace and fluid motion,
the more muscular power of my tap toes rapping asphalt made an
overwhelming impression. When I finished in near exhaustion my troupe
broke out into an applause higher than the spectators. Jim O'Donnell stepped
his way to us. "Mrs. Mahoney!" he greeted our beaming director, "What a
handsome bevy of colleens and lads you've brought! Your club's won the
Judges Choice!"
Our troupe squealed and hugged in relief and disbelief, but my breathlessness
was startled as O'Donnell turned to me. "And you were one most spirited
hoofer there, lassie!"
I blinked aback. "Huh?"
"Not to mention being one lovely emerald-eyed bonnie!"
"Huh?" I blurted, smirking at the other girls muffing their giggles before
being caught in surprise as O'Donnell pinned a live shamrock on my lapel.
"Er, thank you, sir."
"My pleasure! What's your name, my flame-tressed lass?"
"Name? Er--"
"He's--She's--She's Sheila!" Aislynn blurted over my--and Mrs.
Mahoney's--surprise. "Sheila O'Riley! He--she's just a little shy."
He chuckled. "Well then, Sheila, my coy colleen; We want you and your
group to dance at our lingus charity reception for the Irish Archbishop.
Promise us you'll make that date, okay?"
"Promise??" I blurted in shell-shocked bewilderment.
Later on in private with Ms. Mahoney, Aislynn explained what happened.
"...So that's why I called Sean 'Sheila', so's not to make you and Noreen
liars about not knowing about it."
Mrs. Mahoney huffed in exasperation. "Saints preserve us, you kids! Now
that I know about your little shenanigans, if I don't come clean to O'Donnell
I'm as guilty as you are!"
"Mrs. Mahoney, if Sean wasn't passing as Noreen to O'Donnell but as
another girl altogether like he thinks, there's no lie, right?" Maureen reasoned
to our musive matron. "It's not lying if we simply don't say that Sheila's
really a boy and that she won't be back, right? So Sean can still dance at the
reception."
"Wrong!" I snorted.
"You have to!" Aislynn said. "O'Donnell asked specifically for you to come
along."
"Mean your 'Sheila', not me!"
"Sean, Sheila O'Riley can't just suddenly disappear!"
"Yeah? Just watch me throw on my jeans!"
When I got home Noreen was strangely quiet in her sick bed, so I figured it
might be the best time to tell her since she'd be too weak to chase me around
the house. At first she was surprised then shocked then angry when I told
then she did something really shocking; she kissed my cheek.
"I saw it all on TV," she sly said, using her remote to replay her VCR of our
troupe in the parade. It was so weird, just like watching Noreen herself
dancing. In a funny way, "she" felt somehow more than my sister, but
almost a whole different girl whose looks I could shamelessly awe and pine.
It was a strange unsettling feeling.
"Sorry you'll have to dance for the bishop," I apologized.
"Why sorry? You'll be there."
"Sure I will," I said before her meaning sunk in. "Mean, not I'm not--not like
that!"
"You agreed to it and that's made O'Donnell promise the bishop he'd see you
dance."
"I didn't agree; everyone else did!"
"And what happens to our name when O'Donnell has no 'coy colleen' to
show the bishop?" she pressed. "Mrs. Mahoney will be embarrassed and
forced to admit a lie she's innocent to. We could forget about being invited
next year's parade."
Grim and reluctant I nodded. "But why can't you do it?"
"Because I want to meet the bishop myself. Besides I don't have that force
and style you showed. You ought be flattered."
"Noreen, I can't pose as you again! They'll think we're twins--real twins!"
"Not twins, because Sheila O'Riley's going to look a little different when she
jigs again!"
"What do you mean? I asked but she only coyly smiled.
I balked through the day about it, but in the end my fate seemed preordained.
Though I wasn't particularly devout, I was raised to respect authority and
religion, and the one thing I didn't want to slur was any promise O'Donnell
might've made to the bishop because of me. In one funny way I felt smug
and flattered that my performance was that good, but on the other I'd have to
assume the person of my own sister. At least it was for charity.
"I didn't know we'd be dancing for him later instead of this!" my humiliation
muttered.
"It's protocol, Sean--and stop squirming!" Noreen chided on the receiving
line at St. Pat's, like the other troupe girls wearing green dresses and dress
pumps waiting to pass bouquets of roses to New York's cardinal and Irish
bishop along with a sissy curtsy--just like the now chestnut-tressed Sheila
had to do.
"Can't believe I'm wearing green tights and girls' shoes!" I ruefully
muttered, grimacing. "They're so tight!"
"Just be glad you're going flat-chested!" Noreen quipped.
Despite my chagrin and misgivings it went rather well, and I even felt a swell
of delight as the cardinal received my roses and pert curtsy with an effusive
smile and praise. O'Donnell didn't seem to notice Sheila's change of hair
color or a semblance to Noreen and that was okay with me. Later after
changing our troupe danced for him and I performed my solo instead of
Noreen and everyone applauded at my second curtsy of the day.
"Great, I'm through with drag!!" I gushed to my troupe later at a refreshment
table sipping punch when a man with a bunch of cameras slung his neck
sauntered over and beamed at me.
"Hi! Sheila, right? Look dove, I'd like to take some pictures of Irish spots
around New York for our lingus brochure, and between that lovely red hair
and those big green eyes, I can do with a pretty colleen modeling for me!"
"Model??" I nearly coughed up punch over my dress.
"Er, she has to talk it over with mom--her mom first," Noreen chirped,
quietly stepping on my foot to keep my balk quiet.
"You're all nuts!" I scolded mom at home.
"It's also a hundred a day we can use," Noreen put in. "Besides, who's
going to recognize you except for some armchair travelers on the other side of
the ocean?"
Despite my severe qualms and misgivings, it turned out to be rather fun
traveling around New York City to pose for Irish brochure pictures. I went to
fascinating places, met semi-famous people and did lots of interesting things I
doubted Sean McCullough could've or would've done.
Because Sheila was suddenly the troupe's star attraction she just couldn't just
disappear, but neither was I about to trade-in my kilts for anymore skirts so
Mahoney made Sheila a 'guest dancer' for special occasions. Thanks to
Mahoney's generosity and patience coaching my grudging cooperation
feminine traits and mannerisms, Sheila's poise and grace modeling reaped
nice checks and after six months even doing a few ads in girls' magazines.
Mahoney's beautician friend gamefully volunteered to be my personal
hairdresser and makeup lady which helped keep my wigged secret from my
modeling agency.
Still it took awhile getting used to donning dresses and jumpers and tights
and smirking through makeovers into Sheila, though my male pride always
wore boys' briefs instead of panties even when some modeling specs said I
wasn't supposed to (like the camera could tell anyway!), but after a while the
humiliation and self-consciousness faded and it became simply part-time
acting work. In a way, since Sheila proved to be such a public plus to the
troupe, I regarded her role as almost honored duty than humiliation. I was
encouraged by the way my club peers took the same nonchalant attitude as a
children's theater company about my occasional girl role, and Mahoney with
her stage background also saw no difference in my playing a girl or a clown
so long as I was getting paid, and the same view infected mom too.
Maybe too much, especially when I'd bitter fights with her about Sheila
taking offers to do commercials, which was one public exposure leap my
male ego was dreadfully skittish to dare. Mom badly hid her charm with
Sheila's looks and manner at my modeling locations, and I wasn't amused at
all about her not-so-subtle fanciful teases about "bringing Sheila home" for
awhile. So I spent most my spare time at football and basketball at the "Y"
asserting and reinforcing my malehood before mom cut down my activities in
fear of bruising my valuable complexion.
Despite these drawbacks I had to admit that Sheila O'Riley's lot was a fun
and exciting experience and certainly more than Little League; not too many
guys spend each weekend dancing or modeling at amusement parks and
cruise liners and Times Square and Catskill resorts and getting nice free
treats, eats, and gifts--even if some were meant for girls. I still felt as macho
a boy as I was before and so far being honed with passable girl-traits for
money hadn't too much warped my self-image, and I felt quite self-possessed
at keeping my "stage sister" as only a job separate my real-self until the good
times came to an end once puberty mutilated my lucrative and accursed
comeliness.
"Er, Sean..." murmured Kevin almost like a sheepish child asking mom an
absurd request sure to be denied. "Can I ask a--a favor?"
"Sure. We're pals, aren't we?"
"Well...it's--it's kinda a big favor."
"Mom keeps my modeling money," I wearily warned in general.
"Huh? No, I don't wanna borrow any money, but yeah...it--it's kinda about
you modeling," he admitted, pausing, and suddenly I was aware that he had
yet looked me eye to eye.
"What about it? Another autograph?" I assumed. While Sheila was hardly a
starlette--at least not yet, many junior high girls knew 'her' face from kid
cosmetics and fashion newspaper ads and their brothers showed their friends
tear-outs to ogle in school locker rooms. Though I turned a blind eye about
the fate of Sheila's image after it was snapped--mostly to shy the sissy trap of
vanity and disconnect from any part of a supposedly "stunning" subteen girl,
Kevin and Bob couldn't keep from clucking at school that they 'personally'
knew Sheila and often asked me for 'her' signed publicity shots. Mostly it
was who mom obliged them a glossy "glamour" photo which I loathed with
chagrin and not a little uneasiness, that being touched-up similar to those
Scavullo shots of subteen Brooke Shields and Nastassia Kinski all guzzied
up into sexy coed nymphettes. It portrayed Sheila as a teen siren whom you
literally couldn't tell was even related to me with side-by-side photos, though
I at best recall that photo session as five hours of facial pancake and goo, wig
swapping and tight padded gowns. It was a photo that jarred my sense of
malehood and maleness and kindled my first culpable wet dreams and a
serious bout with masturbation all week which seriously warped my sense of
directed desire.
It also sparked my habit of shying mirrors as Sheila, to even shutting my
eyes tight during my Sheila makeovers before my studio dresser's looking
glass.
Fortunately, my model agency killed any further spread of that photo before it
corrupted Sheila's wholesome image as a normal fashionable eleven-year-old
girl in jumpers, party dresses, tights, Mary Janes and scrunchies and fluffy
full skirted dresses girls hardly wore anymore except for grandma's visits.
But I couldn't forget the way that a "souped-up" Sheila could race one's heart
and fantasies...and no only my own.
"Er, no...not another picture."
"So what is then? Boy, you and Bob been really acting weird!" I chaffed his
odd sudden blush, another sign of acting peculiar ever since the parade a
month ago, just like our once buddies-in-kilts camaraderie now subtly
changed. We were still pals, but there was now some reserve in their regard
of me, and sometimes I caught them staring at me with perplexed faces as
though wondering a wild nameless wistfulness that somehow felt.
"See..." Kevin gingerly began if mustering layers of courage to, "See, it's to
do with--with Sheila. See, I...I told some of the guys on my block that I--I
know her, you know?"
"Already know that," I sighed.
"Er, yeah...well, see...yesterday the guys were talking about going to Carl's
birthday party Saturday and who's gonna show up...and, they started talking
about the girls who'll show up, and they sorta asked me if I knew Sheila so
well, how come I won't ask her to come, you know?"
"You know why, Kevin," I sourly reminded, surprised that he even brought
it up.
"Er, yea, I know; Sheila only models, that's all," he sheepishly
acknowledged then drew a sober breath. "Sean, I--I did a real stupid thing.
I--I told them I'd bring Sheila to the party."
I startled. "You what??"
"They dared me!" he gushed, hanging it all out. "They didn't believe I really
knew Sheila! Only that I just got a bunch of pictures of her, that's all! So I
said I'd show them!"
"Well, you're just gonna have to take it back!" I snorted. "'Sheila' doesn't do
special appearances!"
"I know, but--can't you just this one time?" Kevin soft-pleaded.
"Look, Kevin. I just can't, alright? I mean, I'm glad you kept my secret all
this time, but I just can't. Sorry."
"I'll give you my dad's 1956 Mickey Mantle card!"
"I don't collect."
"Okay, my motorbike!"
"Kevin, I'm just not doing it--period, okay?"
"But all you gotta do's just wear her clothes for an hour--"
"Kevin, it's not like Halloween! It's hard playing Sheila because I gotta
psyche myself up into the mood to think and act like a prissy girl whenever I
wear girls clothes to pass like a natural girl. That's how come I'm so good at
it, but pretending it so hard wears you down from being a boy. Sometimes I
do prissy things or say dainty words only girls do without even knowing it.
It's scary. I can't explain it but it's true.
That's why I can't help you; I'm trying to keep myself together as a normal
boy, not half boy half girl, understand?"
Kevin looked sober as a grave. "I--I just don't want to look like a liar or a
loser in front the guys, that's all."
"Sorry, Kevin. I wish I could help, but I can't. Sorry."
I turned away and heard a sniffle behind me. "I was wrong to invite Sheila, I
know..." Kevin resignedly apologized and a pathos tweaked my heart.
"Look--" I offered, hating for feeling guilty for someone's depression, even
if stupidly self-inflicted. "Maybe--maybe if I asked Noreen if she wouldn't
mind passing as Sheila. She loves parties too."
Kevin shook his head. "She can never be Sheila. Sheila's--Sheila.
Besides, she only has brown eyes." He sighed in surrender and despair. "I
guess--I kinda forgot who Sheila was really was. Even Bobby does
sometimes. Sheila's totally awesome to everyone. That's why we brag about
knowing her, 'cause you know what it's like when guys don't believe you're
the kinda stud you say you are, you know?"
I momentarily glared back at him, assuming a snide quip, but his innocent
hangdog face only boomeranged his lament into the quick of my heart and
mellowed it with sympathy and regret because I knew what it was like for
your manhood to be questioned in spades. Thanks to Sheila's lingering
mollifying character traits I was already being called a sissy behind my back
at school, and as good as I was at besting some boys at sports, people were
calling me a pretty tomboy.
My second biggest dread was that maybe being Sheila was just a little too
pleasurable.
"Kevin better REALLY appreciate this!" I muttered at home as Noreen helped
me into her old training bra over her tight spandex bodysuit.
"Man, do I have to wear all this shit?"
"My dress will fit better and you'll look a little older for him since he's
thirteen."
"Don't have to look THAT old!"
"Well, Sheila O'Riley's supposed to be stylish and sassy, isn't that her
reputation?"
I grudgingly nodded at her reasoning and reflected how I would've felt about
so casually donning a training bra months ago before steeling myself with the
view of an actor or clown climbing into silly costumes and acting apart
yourself. Except Sheila O'Riley was no mere silly costume, especially in
mirrors which I consciously avoided during modeling gigs. It used to be
simply a do-and-forget play acting thing, but now I found myself comparing
Sheila to the foxes at school and leaving myself at once smug and awed and
not a little troubled that Sheila seemed a lot prettier than most girls at school.
At first I reasoned it was probably because "her" appearing in fashionable
dresses was a lot more attractive than the ubiquitous unisex jeans and scruffy
sneakers most girls wore, but lately I began to sense some indefinable turn
coat teasing my male ego whenever I saw Sheila's reflection. It was crazy
that seeing yourself could sprung such a weird perplexing feeling which was
vague, disturbingly delicious and teased me to the male core.
"Think I'm getting sissy, don't you?" I soberly asked and Noreen smiled.
"I think it's sweet that you're helping out a friend."
"Mean a real ass."
"Still, he's in a jam and you care."
"I'm only doing it because I know how it feels having guys ranking on you,
that's the only reason!" I sourly retorted. "I wouldn't be doing this at all if I
weren't half-sissy already!"
"Or maybe stuck method acting?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well, you're a lot more sensitive to peoples' feelings than you used to be
and even take time helping people out."
"That's--just being polite."
"Even so you weren't always like that. Always so surly about being teased
about your looks and trying so hard acting macho that you were turning hard
and mean. But now, because you had to learn how to act different to pass as
Sheila, like acting gentle and speaking softly, you're feeling more tender then
boys do."
"You mean sissy," I sourly snorted and she smiled.
"Remember our dance at the burn center children's ward? I don't think a boy
would've hugged that little girl like Sheila did. I mean, a boy might care, but
he wouldn't show how much."
I reflected that day, that poor mummy-like little girl's tinker in my arms and
doing my own jig for her. That felt so--satisfying and humbling.
Here I was having private qualms over wearing girls' clothes and she barely
had any skin left.
"It's only things like that that make this whole drag shit worth it," I asserted
even as my inner self prayed it was so.
I hotly wished Kevin controlled himself as I gingerly flounced downstairs to
meet his picking me up for the dance, yet I felt a weird tingling teasing me
giggle instead of chiding him for looking up my legs and full skirt's chiffon
bouffant slips, even if his vantage up from down the living room couldn't
help it.
"Hi," I said, feeling my voice somehow too shy and soft for polite greetings.
"Wow--mean, Hi!" Kevin blurted, pricking my blushing ego.
"Stop gawking! Acting like you never saw me in drag before!"
"Not like this! Not without a costume!" he apologized, looking over my
peach satin dress whose full shirred skirt's ruffled rim of Irish lace and
shamrocks hovered about my pink silk-filmed knees and calves and my
bowed pale salmon pumps. I shrugged my pouf sleeves which were
blanketed by roiling chestnut curls that went with my own real bangs and ear
ringlets.
Noreen really went all out.
"Well, I'm the same old Sean underneath all this, okay?"
"Wish, Sheila! Man, you almost look thirteen--even fourteen now!" he
gushed, mostly over my snug mounded bodice and its breezy scalloped
neckline. My coral-glossed lips smirked.
"Better not let him forget he's supposed be a lady!" Noreen lightly chaffed
him just as mom walked in, looking nice in a cocktail dress herself as she
beamed at me.
"So lovely! You could be sisters!"
"Oh Mom!..." I sighed in exasperation and abashment before my friend
who'd no idea of my domestic identity crises.
Noreen chuckled. "Let's get Cinderella to the ball before she turns back into a
dude, okay?"
During Mom's short drive we heard nothing but Kevin's gushing admiration
of Sheila. Not about *my* modeling work posing as Sheila, but *to* Sheila
about 'her' work and career.
It dawned me that this was actually the first time Kevin spent more than a few
social moments with Sheila, what the hustle and bustle of our dance
engagements, and he never saw me modeling. So he was doing a great job
showing me just how much he forget who he was really sitting next to and it
was an eerie experience; on one hand I was flattered as heck but on the other
dismayed by how intense his fascination in Sheila was. I didn't want to be
curt and hurt his feelings and remind him who he really talking to, so rather
than pop his happy fantasy's bubble, I just sat quietly, my folded manicured
hands nestled on my spread fluffy skirts and politely smiled.
When we got to John's house Kevin bounced out of the car to again run
around to open the door on my side, during which I leaned to mom.
"Mom, he's crazy about me--about Sheila!" I whispered in dismay of my
seriously deluded friend.
"He's not the only one!" she slyly said to my quizzical frown.
Carl's house was packed with spiffy kids and entering, suddenly I felt a cold
flush rush me stiff into a statute in an attack of shy anxiety.
It was one thing to briefly meet my male peers while step-dancing or
modeling, but I never went social with them, at least not my Sheila persona. I
was especially petrified at being around so many boys so close. One or two
boys I could handle, but a mob coming after me threatened to shatter my
feminine pose as my gagged male ego lashed out at my girl effect with
chagrin and disdain. I got away with playing Sheila so well only because I
was able to suspend my sense of self and reality at doing it, but seeing guys
being attracted to me, feting me, it was like being courted in a schoolyard as
my true self. It was totally weird and ego shattering. It was like watching all
your assumptions and hopes of how macho and manly you were and looked
were dashed into splinters. I actually couldn't walk or talk.
My stomach churned--
I felt a gentle prod at my elbow. "It's okay, Sheila," Kevin gently said. "Just
follow along with me, okay?"
Like a mute docile doll I weakly nodded and let him tow me to a less packed
corner by an aquarium. I held my flat satin tummy as he took out his kerchief
and dabbed my forehead of wet makeup.
"Take it easy, Sheila. No one's going to bite you."
"I--I was about to throw up," I sheepishly admitted, still trembling.
"I--I almost lost my Sheila pose."
"Mean that mood acting thing?" he said to my shaky nod.
"Method acting. It--It's what keeps Sean and Sheila apart. It lets me act a girl
without feeling like a guy in drag."
"And being frightened by lots of people upsets it?"
"No...just--boys."
"What about the guys in the troupe?"
"You're all in on my act and who I really am. I don't have to strain to pass
you. When I model I only meet one boy at a time usually, and he's just there
to model like I am. Not--not chase after me with those eyes like I'm a--a..."
"Girl?" he answered to my feeble nod. "Maybe it's because you can't be like
them right now; can't meet and dance with the other girls like you want to
deep inside."
"I--I don't know. Maybe."
"In a way, maybe it's a good thing you feel so bad. I mean, if you weren't so
worried sick about boys taking you for a pretty chick, your head would really
be in trouble, right?"
I had to giggle at that! That I was maybe turning sissy or gay from my Sheila
role was a long lingering dread ever since I began, especially since I'd no
gauge or benchmark of how much my masculinity was changing from her
side-effects. Kevin hit my fear--and relief--on the head.
"Thanks Kevin. I mean it, thank you." I weakly thanked, grateful for his
keen sense. He warmly smiled and lead me to the refreshment table for some
cold punch. I felt eyes following me and glimpsed at a dozen boys stealing
looks my way.
Kevin chuckled. "You remind me of the frightened does grandpa traps
upstate with their big trembling brown eyes--'cept yours are a nice bright
green."
My male ego wanted to snort at his cute simile, but I dismissed it because the
truth of it was was that I _was_ nervous. "I--I'm just not used to seeing so
many boys staring at me so close."
"Yeah isn't it neat??" Kevin clucked like a top rooster in a barnyard.
"They didn't believe me, and now they're all sorry!"
"Sorry?"
"That they weren't so lucky!" he said in a way that made me giggle and feel
warm and buddy-buddy cozy. Mom came over and noticed something
because she broke out her compact and powder-puffed my face.
"There! Belle of the ball again! Having fun?"
"I wish Noreen was here to hide behind!" I joked, my pine suddenly
sensitive of my reason being there. "Sorry, Kevin."
"That's okay. Just make it up twisting--and no reels here!"
I chuckled even as butterflies returned to my stomach as he towed me out to
the jostling throng of dancers twisting to Chubby Checker and The Pointer
Sisters. But as soon as the song finished a boy, a husky junior jock jumped
in front of Kevin. "Next dance!"
I was startled but recovered quick enough to see Kevin's glare. "It's okay,
Kevin--you're my date--always," I asserted to his glower, meaning less to
dissuade my claim-jumping dance partner than reassuring Kevin that I was
alright. Suddenly, my self-conscious qualms vanished as I worried more
about Kevin causing a scene trying to bail me out of an uncomfortable
situation. I didn't need him sparring with some stupid jock out to spin his jive
and shallow suave around me.
Kevin's simmering eyes read the calming promise in mine and he grumbled
off to the side.
Nine songs and partners later, Kevin managed to jump back in.
"See you're feeling a lot better now!" he chaffed.
"Just tired," I wearily confessed through a propped model's smile.
"Feels like I've done twenty jigs!"
"Wanna rest?"
"Please!" I chuckled and to the smirks of junior jocks and their sighing babes
Kevin lead me to the kitchen then out the back door to the cool starry
backyard.
"Ah, great!" I sighed, taking my pumps off to stand on soft cool grass and
smiled at his puzzled frown. "I don't really model this way dressed up," I
explained, looking at my long pearly Lees' fingernails. "I mean, I'm
supposed to pose a twelve-year-old kid, not some teenager!"
"Well, you sure look like one!" he said, pausing a thoughtful moment.
"You're gonna kill me saying this...but you're the prettiest girl here."
"So I've heard!" I twittered, totally missing his suave pitch. "Those boys!
You should've heard the lines they were giving me, asking me out to movies
and Coney Island and baseball! They kept asking me to sneak out here all
alone for air!"
"Oh," Kevin said in a low sheepish tone. "You were out here already?"
"Ten times! Like I didn't know why!" I slyly chuckled even as I snorted at
their ill-concealed innocent attempts for a smooch.
"Maybe just to cool off."
"I don't think cool was on their minds!" I twittered to his frown. "In fact,
some of them even tried to--to, well, kiss me!" I laughed the confession off
but he looked more nonplused.
"Er, did they?"
"Did they what?"
"Er, you know...kiss you?"
"No, of course not! I mean, they tried but I didn't let them, sure!"
"Good," he muttered if in vexed relief.
I twittered. "I just hope they don't get any weird ideas what's going on out
here this time!"
"Er, well, what's so weird about being with a beautiful girl?" Kevin
defensively rebuked, suddenly shying at my frown. "Mean, you're--look like
a very beautiful girl, so if a guy did want to--to be alone with you, it's only--
natural, you know?"
"Mahoney only taught me how to act like one, not be one," I thickly quipped,
falling sober. "Maybe act too good."
"What do you mean?"
"At first it was only like posing and pretending, but now a lot of Sheila's
rubbing off me I didn't expect."
"Yea, I know; you're kinder, gentler, and happier than you were before," he
remarked to my soft ambiguous grumble.
"Well, I don't know 'bout 'happier'. Mean, I'm a boy."
"That doesn't mean you can't like being happier if being a girl's more fun."
"In some ways it is, in some ways not."
"But don't you ever get curious what it's like?"
"What's like?"
"You know, finding out what it's like feeling all the way like a real girl since
you're so close looking and acting it?"
"I'm really as close as I want to be."
"Afraid?"
I smirked. "Afraid?"
"Of seeing how nice it might be?" he asked like an innocent challenge, a
contorted macho pride welling from my lie, retorting; "No, I'm not afraid.
Why should I be?"
"Are you sure? Really sure?"
"Yes."
Kevin paused and looked at for a few moments as though unsure to dare
something and weighing mortal consequences. "Will you let me forget who
you are right now? For a couple of moments?"
Puzzled, I shrugged, and suddenly he stepped up and laid his hands on my
puffy short shoulders, and before I could wonder his face dropped upon
mine and alien lips pecked my sharp suck of startled surprise. I jumped back,
flouncing like a fluffy buoy, at once appalled and nonplused, my gagged
male ego erupting.
"Shit!!" I sputtered, wiping coral gloss off on the back of my hand.
"Hell's the matter with you??"
"I had to," Kevin confessed almost proudly though sheepishly. "I've been
dreaming about it so long, I--I just couldn't miss the chance."
"Dreaming about it? You queer?"
"No. You're so beautiful--Sheila."
"Sean!"
"No, you're Sheila. You wouldn't want me liking Sean so hard."
"Same thing! Kissing me! Another guy! You a fairy or faggot or
something??"
"Then Bob's one too, because when we talk about Sheila we talked about
kissing her too, no matter who she is."
"You really mean that? Boy, this is too sicko weird! All this time I though
you were a buddy guy, not some--some fag! Is this why you tricked me to
this party, to try to make it on me on the sly?"
"I didn't trick you, Sheila, honest! I would never hurt you, and if I did I'm
sorry. Real sorry."
"Yea, well, so am I!" I gushed, holding a lawn chair as I slipped Noreen's
tight pumps back over my silken toes. "Man, I thought you were my friend!"
"I am your friend, Sheila--!"
"Stop calling me Sheila! I'm Sean!" I scolded, bouncing out of the backyard
to the front sidewalk and jumping in our car's front seat with slam of the
door, containing my anger and bewilderment and confusion as my backhand
wiped my damp eyes. I didn't need this assault to my malehood.
I was a normal red-blooded boy play acting a girl, period. Being Sheila was
like a part in a theater or movie, no more. Why didn't Kevin understand that?
But even more upsetting, why was I fighting so hard TO believe it? I must've
sulked for ten minutes before I heard a soft rap at the door.
"Go away!"
"Sean--" he said as though my name were reluctantly forced "--I want to talk
to you."
"Go the hell away!"
"I'm quitting the troupe," he said, pausing if I didn't believe it. "Hear me?
I'm quitting?"
I feigned callousness but his assertion perked my attention and dismay. Boys
in the troupe put in extra effort and devotion just being there that couldn't be
compared to the camaraderie of a ball team. You simply went through too
much teasing and ribbing in school to just lightly indulge in Irish dancing in
kilts, sort of like boys in ballet. You put up with the insults and taunts from
other guys because you loved it to the marrow, like being a special and
honored link in a thread twining your troupe and winding back into distant
lands and time. There was a vehement fire and love that kept you there
dancing, like with me. I couldn't quit. It was in my blood and I knew it was
in Kevin's too. For him to even consider backing out was a very serious
decision indeed.
"I mean it, Sheila. I am!"
"That's stupid!" I snapped back.
"I'm not going back if I have to hurt you seeing me."
"That's even more stupid!" I scolded, guilt piling on. "Go home and sleep it
off, okay?"
"I can't; your pictures are all over my wall."
"So take them down, stupid! Gee whiz! I can't believe this! Quitting because
you like another guy too much!"
"I don't like a guy; I like Sheila!"
"There IS no Sheila!"
"Yes there is--if you let her come out!"
"Come out of where??"
"Your heart! The same Sheila I danced with! Let her say whether I was
wrong."
"That's nuts! I'm me--Sean, all of me!"
"Alright, then I'll wait till she comes out!" he fumed then slumped back
against the car door sitting on the curb, arms crossed.
"You're nuts, Kevin!" I shouted, angry at the whole tangled mess. I couldn't
believe all this!
A sudden drizzle spotted the windshield. "Kevin, go inside, you'll get wet!"
"Only if you open the door."
"Don't be assy!" I said and the rain got heavier.
"Kevin, go inside! You'll get soaked!"
"No!"
It was the start of a summer downpour.
"Kevin, you're catch pneumonia, fool!" I yelled and when he didn't answer I
unlocked and pushed open the back door and he jumped in, somewhat
soggy. "You're nuts, Kevin!" I chided.
I gasped as he suddenly reached over the front seat and turned the rear view
mirror at me. "Look at it! Look hard!" he snapped. "That's what you do to a
guy, okay??"
He flopped back in the seat while the afterglow of fright held my eyes at the
mirror, at the girl nestled in peach satin and lace and curls on the front seat.
"You're gonna blame me for liking that??"
I wanted to retort, to deny, but flypaper held me as I was totally taken aback.
I always shied Sheila in a mirror whenever possible, partly from slighting my
virility and from a fear of seeing my maleness whittled down to a totally
contrary incarnation which most shined the best of me. My heart and soul
were very much a boy's with the same perked horms gawking and drooling
over pretty girls at school as any boy my age. Yet, ironically, my male ego
worked against me whenever I caught Sheila in my mirror. She could've
been my fourteen-year-old cousin; pouty glossy coral lips and wide emerald-
green eyes fringed by lush feathery lashes on a creamy oval face framed by
curly wisps of coppery curls--
Yes, I could see why Kevin called me beautiful because Sheila really was.
There was just no relationship to the boy I was or used to be, God help my
bruised struggling male ego! And if a thirteen-year-old boy like Kevin
responded to that awesome effect as I did, who was I to really blame his
reactions? To behold Sheila by herself, apart myself, by myself, was beyond
flattering. It was...was...
I swallowed a queer pounding sheepishness. "I...I suppose I asked for it,
letting you ask me to let you--forget what I am."
"I always forget that looking at you, Sheila."
"But--I'm not Sheila!" I cried, starting at the brush of the back of his hand
against my velvetized cheek, stroking it, my male ego's impulse to recoil
from a boy's tender touch suddenly disarmed and silenced by some
infathomable compelling.
"Keep looking the mirror!" he snapped and my chagrin docilely complied.
"Say that's not Sheila O'Riley looking back! Say that that's Sean a boy!"
Boy? That was absurd.
There may've been a boy somewhere, but he was obviously far away, his
stalwart ego safe from slander and emasculation even while beguiling and
betraying me while I gazed back Sheila's angelic face in awe as wonder grew
breathless and fascinating and pounded with his every brush of my cheek as a
weird tingle seeped up my spine and a throbbing tightness swelled beneath
my fluffy lacy lap as though my boys briefs were straining against my snug
satin envelope and suddenly I admitted what Kevin must've felt, what he
must be feeling, what my faraway truth should be just like other men and
boys smiling and winking at Sheila the coy colleen model and sassy Irish
dancer which attention my male ego dismissed as blind annoying insults, but
which I now couldn't deny the effect of the lass just the same of the angel my
mirror.
My remote real-self envied and imagined I was Kevin back there, anxiously
and breathlessly watching Sheila revolve in her billowy rustling crinoline
slips to sit up kneeling backwards on the front seat, looking back at me, a lost
wistful expression on her lovely round face, her large timid green eyes
widening as Kevin-me leaned forward and her feathery lashes shyly fluttered
and knit shut, her coral lips slightly parting in the seconds of anticipation
before Kevin-me's lips pressed their soft trembling sigh and gently closed
them with awesome kneading osculation.
"Oh, there they are in the car!!" a far away voice twittered like a hammer on
glass, jarring us apart in a wild instinctive flurry of alarm and rustling skirts
to flop back into our seats, unassuming and realizing the rain had stopped.
Mom sauntered up to the car. "What you two doing in there?"
"We were getting some air and got caught in the downpour," Kevin explained
ahead of my gnashed lower lip. "We ducked in here. It --was closer."
"Well, come on back to the party!"
"I...my stomach's a little queasy, mom," I said.
"I thought you went a little pale when you first walked in. Just as well. The
girls hate you and the boys are scheming for you!" Mom chuckled, climbing
in and driving home, first stopping by Kevin's.
"Er, we gotta use the side door," Kevin said, looking at me hintingly.
"I got that baseball card I owe you, Sean."
"Okay," I quietly said, my mildly padded bodice pounding as I followed him
up his driveway and out of eyeshot from the street when he turned and
clasped my slim hands and gently drew my wild anxieties close, and though I
felt skittish and feardul and unsure I closed my eyes and basked the press of
his lips on mine again until the tips of my pumps felt so tight the pain
momentarily derailed my heady daze, the break just long enough to give my
floundering male ego a chance to flail out and grab my wits and wrest me
away from the sweet stormy tempest, almost physically so because I nearly
flounced aback, gasping.
"Sheila--"
"Ke--Ke--Kevin! Wait--!" I panted, struggling to tap my tattered male ego to
keep afloat, to not fall into the inviting abyss of awesome warm snug
affinities that he brought me to the edge of. "Kevin, don't! Please! I--I'm a--a
guy! A boy!"
"No, you're not. Not now," He stepped up and I drew back.
"No, Kevin--"
"You like me a lot, Sheila. I know you do!"
"Yes--I mean--no! I like you for a--a friend! Not like--like this!"
"Yes you do, because you're Sheila now, so it's okay."
"Stop, please! Oh, my head's so--so--scrambled! I'm--Sean!"
"You're Sheila! Look at yourself! Feel yourself! You're a girl now, Sheila!"
"No--!" My lips gasped for air and reason inside a tight satin mold still
trapping inside me the pounding taste of my first peck kiss and the crazed
butterflies fluttering deep my stomach and the drums pounding deep my
padded bosom. I was dizzy with confusion and clashing feelings I didn't
want hurt or spoil. I was midway a swaying bridge where Sean's very being
was being insulted the very worst way while Sheila's was being
complimented with the highest homage.
"Kevin, I--I--please, give me--time to--to think! O Gee God, I--I'm so...so
confused!..."
"Don't be," he said, gently brushing a wayward coppery lock from my
cheek, "You're Sheila and Sean's Sean, and I won't mix that up any which
way, promise, okay?"
Gazing into his smiling eyes I feebly nodded as my docile daze let him steal
another juicy peck before a car horn beeped. My tattered male instinct pulled
me away and waved as I flounced on clicking heels back down the driveway.
"Nice to see that Kevin had such a nice time with you. So, got your card?"
Mom asked with sly funny voice.
I blushed. "I--I guess I forgot--it..."
"You're red as a berry! Is there something you'd like to tell me, Sheila?"
Mom never called me Sheila alone because she knew it pricked my male ego
to hit the roof, but suddenly it was on vacation, leaving my identity and soul
floundering without an anchor or label. I sat there quiet in a heady haze,
totally muddled in a sea of strange confusing sensations and sentiments and
selves. The only thing I was sure of was that my natural but forbidden boys'
curiosity of another boy's kiss conspired with my Sheila persona in a fantasy
atmosphere to perk my blind whimsical hormones to nip the forbidden fruit
by the excuse of seducing Sheila through an imagined proxy of Kevin.
No.
Can't make-believe how it didn't happened. I can't deny I invited it.
Can't deny I feel deep affections for another boy--
No!
If I'm to stay myself--stay Sean--and remain proud and true as a boy, if I'm
to preserve my birthright and ego's honor and genetic heritage and allegiance
as a male, then it was Sheila whom Kevin kissed, not Sean...
Nibbling my slick coral-glossed lower lip and steeling down the drums
fading deep inside my bosom, I quietly and prissily spread my rumpled skirts
and huddled my silken knees and heels together and folded my hands upon
my billowy lap just as I was properly taught.
There.
I'm steady and ready now, I calmly compromised inside my settled selves.
I'm a-okay. So a-okay that on my next modeling call or girls' dance I'll wear
panties like I'm supposed to, just like all proper girls should.
Because I'm Sheila now and was ever since I first dressed so today and until
I undress and go to bed. Tomorrow morning my brother Sean will wake up
afresh and macho without any need to felt weird or guilty from what his other
sister wears or did tonight with his best friend. My boyfriend.
No need at all.
Mom smiled at me and patted my folded hands and teased my curls.
"Sometimes a flower seed takes just a little longer to sprout in perfect soil.
We'll have a nice mom to daughter chat about dealing with boys, alright,
Sheila?"
"Yes, mother," I softly chimed in a world suddenly changed with dangerous
delicious wonders and nothing was as black and white as I thought or wished
they'd be.
***
How does a smitten junior-high jock get on the close side of a cold embittered lad who's the splitting-image of his stunning classic tween star heart-throb?
This Valentine's Day quickie was 60% inspired by a middle school incident which I might expand on in a larger story. Please excuse this draft's grammar; I was scurrying to get this out on the appropriate day!
Take care!
* * * * *
Valentine Walnut
by Deela Eon
As macho junior high jock I was, I gasped in spotting Craig McManon randomly pluck the red CD off the Sam Ash Music store table and slipped it into his wallet.
Shit! What the heck she's doing??
'He' I mean!
It was always easy to forget even though I basked the fantasy of it.
It was exactly like looking at a tomboy Velvet Brown.
Velvet as in National Velvet.
No shit.
Actually I didn't realize that uncanny bewitching spitting-image with an old flick till I overheard Craig's neighbors and our middle school teachers saying the same behind his back; A tween shaggy-haired Liz Taylor tomboy twin who always wore a beauty-spoiling scowl, and it was those same accolades that early turned him bitter and hard and aloof and so violently temperamental that not even bullies in school teased him.
I could understand that — but freaking shoplifting?? I guess he thinks the world owes his battered male ego and misery something, but not like that girl — er, guy!
Nonplussed what to do, I trailed at my routine stealth distance as he turned and headed for the store exit, bypassing the sales register counter for the open door —
"Hey!" a man's voice boomed and Craig's scruffy sneakers froze stiff like my heart as a security guard hustled up. "Wha'cha got your pocket??"
Those wide pinky Velvet lips wavered as the shrew shrank into a shaking mouse like a flowing damsel cowering before a glaring dragon.
Shit!
I can't let that happen! She — he deserves it for stealing, but but still —!!!
In a wild sweep I scooped up several CD boxes and raced up and pumped up a jocular bravado.
"Yo, Velvet!" I chaffed, coming between the guard and Craig's look of terror turned bewildered before a stranger. "Where ya goin' with my CD, sis?? I just told you hold it till I pay for it!!"
Both of them looked at me funny. Craig's pretty one of sheer bewilderment while the guard frowned at me and my bundle, "You told her to stuff it in her pocket?"
"Yea! I told my stupid sister just to hold it, but she can't keep holding something else!!" I declared, fishing the CD out of Craig's pocket and hoping his pricked male ego didn't bridle out of mouse mode and contradict me "— but I didn't know she really had to run to the John that bad!! Go 'head!" I snapped like an annoyed brother, gesturing Craig to escape into the mall beyond the doors. Instead she — he — looked totally nonplussed, like a cornered mouse unsure where to run from the cat then seemed to take a hint and started to move out —
The security guard frowned. "Hey stop —!"
"Yo! You don't want her to piss here on your shoes, do you?" I chaffed. "She's comin' right back either way!!"
The guard frowned, looked at me, my handful of CDs then at Craig then grudgingly shrugged and Craig looked at me blankly then scurried off.
"Next time tell your sister to keep her hands outta her pocket," the guard snapped and I sheepishly nodded and went to the cash register. I only had enough to buy one CDs out of twelve, but it was a 'legit' mistake and I waved at the guard on my saunter out into the bustling central mall.
My heart sank.
No sign of Craig.
Then who can blame him. He was probably really was scared to piss. At least I saved her — him, from a fate worst than embarrassment, even though I blew my cover after months of being her stealth shadow at school and staking out her — his modest home outside my own neighborhood. My face was just another junior jock in school to her — him — till now. Now I've been spotted — worst, maligned because I publicly labeled him the one thing he loathed.
Oh well, at least I had my shining knight moment. Maybe it's a one habit good to break anyway since you really have to question your studness when another guy perks you even more than leggy sweater babe Joyce Shaffer — and Velvet hardly has any boobs either!
Glumly I went outside the mall for the long walk home then suddenly sensed a presence trailing me —
"Hey—!!” someone called — a familiar voice — and I spun.
Craig!
Pretty in his mixed sheepishness and petulance. "Why — Why'd you do that?" he asked like catching a blackmailer.
Damn, but that's one wildly miscast voice! Velvet Brown sounding like a dude!
Still, seize the moment, guy!!
"I was wondering the same 'bout you!" I chided, trying not to sound flippant. Craig was almost looking for an insult to bash one, whether he owed me one or not.
He backed aback like surprised at being barked and haughtily shrugged. "No — No big deal. Half the kids in school do!"
"’Cept you got caught this time, right?"
He blinked aback at my candor and snarled. "What you know 'bout it?"
"I know next time you'll get caught you'll get a J.D. record that'll screw you from a good job and feeling proud ‘round your family and folks next door!”
He winced then snorted. "So why should you the motherfuck care?"
Man, Velvet shouldn't have any mouth like that! Really!
"Maybe I shouldn't —"
Go for it, man! Can't get any worst!
"— but I'll tell you the truth if you can take it."
Craig snickered. "Ain't no friggin' wimp!"
"Alright —" I braced my gut, glimpsed around for any eavesdroppers then belted the damning. "Because you look National Velvet as hell and didn't want to see my fav flick chick getting busted because you did a stupid-ass thing!"
His lush lashes snapped wide as those awesome violet eyes and he bitterly sniffed. "I ain't no fuckin' 'Velvet'! When you all gonna quite the shit??"
"Well, till you get plastic surgery you're stuck with it, right? Maybe it's a good thing too because if you looked like any other guy right now you'd be in the guard station with the police!"
"I don't owe nobody squat — 'specially joker jocks like you!"
"I'm not — but stop thinking ‘bout yourself and think what would your mom and dad be doing right now if the store called up 'bout what you did?" I challenged and his arrogant fell sober. "I don't know why you suddenly stole like that to begin with because it's the first time I ever caught you at it. You're not that angry at the world, are you?"
Craig prettily frowned. "You been following me??"
Trapped — but might as well let it out. "Yea. Ever since school term started."
"That's creepy! Weirdo creepy!"
"Maybe it is. but it just kept you from being grounded all year and your street calling you robber!" I hammered back them tactfully softened. "Look, I don't do guys — but Velvet Brown's my fav flick chick and you happen to look so exactly like her it's the next best thing to being 'round her."
"That's sicko!"
"Maybe -- but it doesn't hurt you or anyone what I imagine, and it shouldn’t matter if it helps both of us.”
“Mean ‘both of us’?”
Here we go —
“Well, since you don’t like getting caught like that, I wouldn’t mind helping out seeing that you don’t.”
"I don't need no babysitter!"
"Tell that to your mom next time you get caught!!" I rebuffed, hammering his meek spot. "Let me tell you something, you might think you're tough enough but you don't know how bad it is when your folks have to live with the whole block knowing their son's a robber! I ain't being kind saving you from that! I'm saving you from hell!"
For a moment he nibbled that soft tender lower lip. "So you want me to say thanks for saving my bacon, right?"
"No —" I said, pouncing on insane chest pounding opportunity, "I wanna make a deal! Let us be buddies to help you stay outta trouble!"
He bitterly snorted. "You think I'm that lame?? You just wanna do that because you wanna imagine that I'm — that some 'Velvet's hanging with you!"
Bingo! You'll never know how wild my fantasies dolls you up, girl — er, guy!
I shrugged. "Okay, that's part of it. I got a kinky fantasy. But I'm not asking you to wear a dress or anything, just be pals."
"Sissy pals!"
"Told you, I'm not like that. Now if I had a magic wand I'd make my wish real you'd be trouble for a guy, but I'm not gonna lie that your looks ain't part of it, but it doesn't mean we can't be any less friends and do real guy things."
"Fuck! Maybe I steal but you're a worst a weirdo! A guy following a guy around and that ain't faggot weird? Why the freak should I hang 'round you??"
"For one thing I know you suck in math and history and I can tutor you that every day after school and get to like it! I was the same way once till mom got this tutor for me who taught me tricks that makes it easy to remember and learn stuff! I can teach you the same stuff and start getting straight 'B's!"
Craig curtly sniffed, looking pretty in vexation, like he was frustrated I hadn't thrown him a baldfaced insult about his looks to flail fists at. "Suppose I said no, huh?"
"Then that's the way you want it. I don't want you to fail or get in trouble anymore. I can't help you do better in class to help you get your folks off your back if you don't want to, but I'm still going to be watching out for you — and if you doing something like you did again, I'll be there to bail you out again."
"I don't need no 'bailing' out!" He snapped, then shifted tact. "Suppose that guard didn't believe you and though you were ripping stuff too, would've you said 'no way' knowing me then?"
"No. I would've stalled him somehow, 'tripped' over him to give you a chance to run away or something."
Craig frowned in disbelief then snorted again. "I'm no fuckin' damsel that needs no rescue, weirdo!" he derided, starting to back if if to go away but stopped like he was mulling. "Thanks — for not lettin' my folks catch this," he grudgingly muttered.
"Wait!" I called and he stopped and I extended the bagged CD to him. "Take it. It's the one you grabbed. It'll be like the guy never stopped you, right??"
Craig eyed the bag then grudgingly took it like it was terror's due, like he'd somehow triumphed over the guard. "Thanks."
"You doing anything right now?" I quickly injected and he frowned. "How 'bout letting me apologize for calling you Velvet around people with a McDonalds Big Meal — anything you want?"
Craig sniffed. "Told you, I'm no fuckin' girl!"
"I know. You're just an angry dude who'd rather steal a CD than grab a free meal! And if you want me to bug off, you'll have to say so over a Big Mac!"
Craig bridled and balled his fists. "I know how to stop your shit!"
"Go ahead! We'll both be black and blue but it's not gonna change anything — or your looks! What's so hard 'bout having a buddy to rap and game and study with and getting guys at school to respect you better seeing that? But it's up to you! I'll lose my best chance for — for a best friend, but at least I was square with you instead of teasing you behind your back like most everyone else does — which is why you're always so friggin' rotten and lonely! But not totally lonely because I'll always be watching whether you want or not unless you tell me to stop over fries! So beat me!"
He bridled and snickered. "Freaking weirdo gay! Go find a real princess to save, creep!!" Craig snapped and spun off and away from my sinking chest then halted like he'd just peeked into the bag then hotly stormed back.
"Think this is fuckin' funny, huh??" he snapped on the verge of striking.
"What??"
"You know fuckin' what!!" he snapped, yanking the plastic bag open so vehemently it tore and exposing the red CD inside —
A Valentines Day tunes CD.
"Shit, don't blame me! That's the one YOU picked! I didn't know!!" I retorted, staring his glare down. "Look, if you feel that pissed about it, I'll go back and get you five CDs you really want, okay?"
"You don't gotta treat me shit!"
"Fine — but I'm still gonna follow you till you tell me to get lost over a Big Meal — if you're that stupid to knock down having a new friend."
He snorted and shoved the bag in my hands. "You don't wanna be my 'friend'! You just wanna nice piece of eye-candy following you around, right??"
So she — he — does admit he's attractive!
Somewhat.
"What does it matter so long we're macho pals doing macho stuff? And if you wanna tell me to 'stop' I will — even if I'll be a way bigger loser than you getting stopped by any guard!"
Craig smirked and stumped off a few weakening paces then stopped in a mulling pause then did something I wasn't sure was intentional or impulse, but he tossed his dark locks which settled over slim shoulders and about a milder face a little more fluffier and made a sulky tomboy Velvet even prettier. Even without any boobs.
Craig marched back and snatched the bag and snapped its split contents over his knee and tossed it far then his wildly miscast voice tartly muttered in my face with awesome pretty violet eyes glaring;
"Look weird at me over the table just once and I'll freakin' kill you, got it??..."
FIN
Greg learns how blind and sly love can be when he snoops on a trophy high school throb!
A somewhat crude goldie-oldie from 2000 I'm posting here to complete my sets!
Valentine's Daze
By Dee Eon
I wasn't into being smarmy or mushy, but I was moved to do the
quaint corny thing during the Valentine's Day Ball at the mall teen center.
"Er...here," I said, passing the pink envelope over to the tenth-grade
looker-and-a-half across our table. Camellia's pink-polished fingernails
picked open the envelope and took out the lacy red valentine greeting card.
"Er, happy Valentine's Day!" I managed to chuckle out.
Camellia blushed then smiled as though she was going to break into
tears and suddenly my chest puffed up and I felt like the luckiest guy in the
world, and Camellia was my super catch. Well, the jock in me would like
to brag that I bagged her after a spirited hunt, but in reality she hooked me
during my football team mate Reggie's party six months ago. I couldn't
miss her coyly watching me all the time, and the way her eyes shyly
dropped as I drifted up to her between jostling dance partners and boogied
on since.
How to describe Camellia? If you saw Amanda Peterson from that sci-fi
"Explorers" movie then you've almost her southern belle clone in Camellia
except she had wavy cornsilk tresses and bright green eyes. Sleekly curved
in sweater tops and pleated tartan skirts flaunting slender ivory-filmed legs
from mid-thigh over nice knees to her shiny jet skimmer pumps, Camellia
was one hourglass dish, and it was too bad she wasn't in my high school.
Then, maybe I would've had more time and chances to break through her
country-coy which was frustrating and thrilling at the same time. Unlike
most other chicks in school who can't wait to get into someone's jeans,
Camellia was as demure as a debutante and you just didn't move on a real
young lady like that like on some dime-a dozen high school bimbette. Until
then, I didn't think it was possible to string an interesting girl for months
without even landing a peck on her cheek, but Camellia did just that. She
wasn't chilly or withdrawn, just teasingly coy with an engaging
personality that sidetracked your mind from her shy bod with a wit and
sassy humor and deep interest in things jock that surprised me. She was
like a best buddy all wrapped up in a babe's bod, and maybe for the first
time was the one knockout who I really respected as a person rather than a
trophy Barbie.
Still, I waited, hoping in a selfish way for at last that long awaited peck
of her coral-glossed lips on my cheek at least, but my luck was still out.
"Thank you," her almost whispery voice said, her pale eyelashes
dropping if more than just shy of meeting mine. "You...you don't know
what this does for me, Greg."
"You don't know what you do to me!" I japed and her eyes flicked up
to me in a strange way, almost if hinting that somehow in the most basic
private way she did. She turned her softly sculpt profile to me as she
diverted her eyes to aimlessly concentrate on the plaza fountain.
"Greg..." My name sounded like a soft gulp or a catch in her throat, her
voice suddenly incongruously quiet and somber, as though reluctant and
fighting some inner wistfulness. "I...I don't know if--if I..I should..."
She laid the valentine down.
My heart leaped into a cold bottomless pit.
Oh shit no!
Blew it!
Quick--Quick!
Damage control!
Jeeze--!!
"Camellia, what's wrong? I'm coming on too strong or what?"
"It's not you--or anyone else, believe me," she said, her green gaze
misting at me. "It's--it's to do with being honest with a nice guy...and I
really haven't been."
"Camellia, I--I don't get it. I mean, I thought we had something, you
know?"
"We do! That's--that's my problem. I--I can't let this go on. Not with
you."
She rose and jumped up faster and held her wrist. "Wait, Camellia. Tell
me what's going on!"
She looked at me with angst then shied. "When--When I come back
from the ladies room, okay?" she said and I let go and she half-skipped off
toward the rest room hallway. Something worrisome and anxious
compelled me get up and weave the lunch crowd and peek around the
corner to just in time catch Camellia pushing out the exit door at the end of
the hall.
Shit!
I scurried after her, quietly cracking the door to watch her wind down
the stairway. I wanted to shout but something held me back. Instead I
quietly held back, whether to mull over guilt and bewilderment or just to
follow her, I saw her hurry out of the mall into the twilight and up the side
streets. I was hugging trees and jumping behind hedges keeping a block
behind her, all the while wondering what I did wrong and what I could say
to salvage the situation. We were on street bordering the woody outskirts
of town almost approaching the old abandoned gas station when Camellia
suddenly paused and my heart jumped almost as high as my feet did
leaping behind some bushes in the dark.
Shit! She must've made me! I swore, but it seemed like she was
looking up and down the street for people or cars, and during a brief
absence of both she ducked behind the gas station. I was puzzled. A classy
beauty like her hiding out in a dump like this?
I quietly made my way in the bushes behind the station and saw the rest
room door's lock broken, and bewildered, I gingerly went down and
slowly peeked the keyhole. It's almost funny but I felt embarrassed, like I
was peeking into the stall of a girl's bathroom, even if it was a rundown
place. There was a battery lantern on the sink and a large duffle bag which
had jeans and a shirt and pair of huge nerdy glasses.
What was going on??
She bent over the sink and gently touched her eyes and caught two
things she carefully put away.
Contact lenses.
Huh. Wouldn't have guessed. Okay, so she really wears glasses. A
slight notch off her ideal score, but then only fools don't make passes at
foxes who wear glasses.
Then Camellia stepped out of her skimmer pumps and unbuckled her
broad belt and her plaid skirt fell past her slender beige-filmed legs and
over slim ankles which nimbly stepped out of them.
Unconsciously I licked my chops.
Damn!
If I hadn't screwed up all that could've been mine! I was sure she was a
virgin; after doing several cheerleaders since twelve you can tell in their
shy fawning eyes--
Suddenly I felt embarrassed. I mean, if it weren't for the fact I was
moaning over being dumped I'd be drooling. Maybe this was the last
chance I'd ever get now...
She reached into her sunny blonde mane...and took them off a short
mop of brown locks.
What??
I felt my heart sink slightly. I mean, any jock's ideal babe had fluffy
blond tresses, not some butchy brunette mop.
Oh, well, she couldn't help being born that way, and at least she knows
how to turn a foxy blonde. I can let that slide, especially since my buddies
won't ever know and that's what also counted in strutting around with a
babe in tow.
I shrugged and bent into the keyhole as, leggy in a camisole's lacy
half-slip, Camellia pulled her sweater up off her satiny slip and over her
head, Despite my despair I was held rapt by as she pulled her slips' straps
off her slim shoulders.
Huh?
I blinked, startled by an unveiled well-curved spandex bodyshaper.
Jeeze!
Don't say her fig's phoney too! I rued, still hoping. Well, maybe her
natural bod's not so bad...
She drew down the front zipper like a banana from a pudgy abdomen
and a thickening waist inches from its former concave pinch. And heaped
on that surprise was that from its nicely mounded cups fell two foam
baseballs just as she turned her back to me to pick them up and continued
peeling and more foam thingies fell out from inside the hips and slim small
butt.
Dismay rushed me.
What??
She's even flatter than I am!
Heck, my kid sister's shapelier than this!
I felt a tinge of betrayal. It was selfish, yes, I mean my foxy babe had a
plain Jane bod! For months I was wondering and wet dreaming about
what treasures that matched the beauty of her face laid hidden under her
coy fashion.
Her back was still to me as she stepped out of her bodyshaper, the only
things still on her jewelry and pantyhose, but even then I soberly noticed
as she drew down her thick beige hose how slightly less sleek and
unblemished her legs were, as though her hose were really filmy molders
of beguiling symmetry.
Christ!
I heard of shit like this! Dogs making themselves over into foxes to fool
the wolves. I always thought it was just Hollywood bull, but I just saw it
happen!
Suddenly I was pissed.
No...no, this is wrong!
She freakin' duped me!
I mean, a wig's one thing, but pumping a bod on the sly with foam and
spandex was another animal! That's plain outright deception! She was
fooling guys with a fake figure and bogus bod! That's wrong! Worst than
wrong! What would've happened in my back seat beside a billboard
somewhere?
No, she's not gonna get away with this shit!
Gritting my teeth I grabbed the doorknob then heard a soft whine, like a
short wail of grief that shot through my anger and piqued my wonder and
concern to return to the keyhole to see Camellia, her slim back still facing
me but stooped on her haunches on the old tile floor, head in her hands,
sobbing.
Jesus.
Suddenly my hot ire cooled into sheepish guilt.
So maybe she really was stretched out about fooling me!
Man!
She was coy about ever kissing me, even touching hands. I chalked it
up to her virgin shy, but maybe it was more. Maybe she knew she was
fooling me but it was getting to her too. I tried to dream up ways how
Camellia could've profited by fooling me, just like how I got noticed and
envious looks from towing her around on my elbow, but Camellia didn't
have any friends that I noticed. No one to show me off to or flatter herself
by. If anything Camellia avoided other guys, and I could tell in her eyes
that the way she dressed and laughed and flattered me was all meant for
only one person.
Damn!
I really freakin' misjudged her.
Yes, she kind of pulled the cashmere over my eyes getting my attention
and dates, but she must've really had it bad for me to go through all this
just to please me. Sure, it was kind of desperate, but then would've I even
looked twice at a chick with the bod and head of a junior high sissy? Even
though her smile and laugher turned me on and she understood my interest
and liked everything I did without a peep of giving me a hard time? Heck,
I wish some of the cheerleaders I had were as cute and coy and charming
as Camellia was! Even if that Camellia wasn't really all reality cracked up
to be...
I felt an almost corny cavalier swell buoy me.
No...no problem.
Okay, so she's wigged out and padded up. Disappointing sure, but no
mean thing. I can live with that. Besides, she wasn't really all that plain at
all in her face, in fact it was still as knockout lovely as it always was, even
though it was crowned by a short mousy mop. If she fixed that up she still
wouldn't be bad at all, like the kind of pert pixie cuts my cousin wears. I
mean, I wouldn't mind if she kept on dolling up a blonde Barbie, don't get
me wrong, but just to say maybe my loss was more minimal than it
seemed. Maybe if I suggested her to let her hair grow long and maybe even
take those fem steroids to develop more like how ex-pancake Amy Hill in
seventh grade bloomed into a Dallas cheerleader. I was sure Camellia liked
me deep enough to consider that, and chances were that she'd stack into
something serious.
Yea, it wasn't done! She'd need a little work, but I could still have a
brunette babe instead of flaxen fox, and if I played my cards right she
might play both! Yes, I'll just tell her that I forgive her for fooling me and
there's nothing to feel bad about because we still care about another the
same way and can go on like before--well, not exactly, since her truth's
excuse of getting too close to me was gone, so we could finally at least pet
and neck like crazy, and I can wait some for her bod to bloom before the
long dreamt pleasure of popping her cherry.
I chuckled at that thought, and if prompted by the salacious notion I
checked out the keyhole again, assuaging myself that her waning sobs
would be gone for good after I catch a peek of--
Wiping tears, she shakily rose.
Ah, she's turning!
Don't worry, babe. I'm not gonna dump any chick who cares that
much about--
A hammer hit my gut, jarring my soul.
My jaw flopped and fell.
Wh--What??
No.
Can't be!
Jeeze, it's not real!
Can't!!
Like a masochistic voyeur frozen at the keyhole I was held in perverse
enthrall and appall fringing horror. It was like suddenly I knew the world was
a warped dream and my purulent fascination wanted to stay on to play it out.
Then the play was finished and with cold mindless alarm I split
I ran till I was five blocks around ten corners and pounding asphalt into
gravel. Months of sweet delicious games and laughing innocent nights had
evaporated in seconds, chopped like a guillotine and casting me adrift in a
limbo of reality and slurred fantasies.
I should've been angry. I should've been pissed. Instead I was stunned
blind walking all the way home. What I saw didn't register in reality or my
comprehension. As a macho guy since the sandbox, it was utterly
unthinkable.
In some bizarre way my anger was skittish about walking into
tenth-grade home room but I did, and I tried not to seem too obvious
snatching looks at the scrawny nerd sitting in back of me across my aisle.
I had to shake my head, partly praying I was just wrong with delirious
rage and trying to keep from tearing the wimpy nerd's head off.
Harvey Lacter was a mousy lanky nerd in his jeans and button shirt and
hornrim glasses and short brown tousled hair. His glasses were so big and
his hair so raggedly that it completed his image of a reclusive weirdo. He
was like a stealth wimp because he was so plain and uninviting so few of
the bullies in school even noticed him to kick him around like other nerds
and sissies. As far as I was concerned he was just furniture, though I often
caught him glimpsing at me but I chalked it off to coincidence.
But apparently there was far more in those glances than I knew.
I held down my rage only because I didn't need by buddies or
worst--my ex-babes--catching any idea what was going on. I would've
loved a public object lesson, but my reputation as a jock and babe's man
would go down the sewer if they ever found out the true story. And to
think I dumped cheerleader babes like Yvette Jackson and Pamala Walcott
for--for--this!!
Lacter was at his opened locker and I made my way over. He must've
sensed me coming because he suddenly looked up and seemed to start at
my leaning on his locker door. For a moment I felt a weird unreal haze as
those nerdy brown eyes looked up behind those big nerdy glasses from a
vaguely familiar face. If it weren't the glasses and that scraggly brown
mop fringing his face, you can say Lacter was a classic "pretty boy".
Those high cheekbones and small rounded chin and delicate features had
no business on a guy past ten, and if it weren't for his habit of hanging his
head I think more people would've seen the hidden prettiness and hung on
his tail. It was bad enough Lacter's vaguely familiar features jarred me silly
beyond doubt that yesterday's jolting spectacle was no dream or
nightmare.
"Uh...hi..." Lacter softly stammered looking away and I felt a fleck of
unreal awe at this mousy pretty-boy that was totally inconsistent with
another now lost incarnation.
I rumbled. "Is there something you wanna tell me?"
"Huh?"
"I said, is there something you wanna tell be you goddamn sissy?"
His slim form seemed brace just shy of cringing. "I--I don't know," he
said in a meek voice without raising his head. I slipped the peach envelope
out of my vest and shoved it at his flat shirt.
"You forgot this in your Cinderella act yesterday, but you didn't say
that you turn back into a wormy wimp!" I snapped and his frame seemed
to jerk some with my every syllable until I forced my voice down.
He seemed to swallow, his small voice a near whimper. "I...I'm so
sorry."
"Oh you'll be sorry alright when I tie your ass outside, 'Camellia'!"
At that name his face jerked up at me and in its familiar subdued
prettiness I saw glimpses of another stunning self, like how a teen starlet's
brother reflects their common genes, and those images at once startled and
outraged me.
"I'm not going to beat the snot outta you--yet. I'm not gonna kill my
reputation beating the shit outta a pretty-boy here."
Lacter's eyes closed and his lanky frame seemed to waver and sway.
He was scared shit, great!
"I...I...I'm sorry," he barely whispered, paler than milk.
"Yeah, should've though about that months ago messing with my head
like this, you freakin' drag queer! Hey, take it easy!" I chided but Harvey's
shakes continued.
Jeesus.
The kid was about to friggin' faint!
I pulled his elbow off to the far stairwell where we could continue alone
and undisturbed. Lacter was sweating like a mother, making him look even
more like some pathetic wimp,
I couldn't believe this was who I admired and praised and--!
"Now spill it!" I snapped, and Harvey's glasses rose like the
condemned.
"I...I...had to," his slow voice murmured at his shoes.
"Pretend you were a chick? Camellia??" I snapped in its wild absurdity.
"It was the only way...I mean, I--I...ever since sixth grade, always had
a...a crush on you..."
It was like brick hit me. "You had a crush? On me??" I gushed and his
head feebly nodded. "What are you, a gay fag or something??"
"No--I mean, I don't know. I just know that I...I...love you."
"Gay!" I muttered and he visibly shook. "A freaking gay guy jerks my
nose over six months. I oughta plaster you! Do you know what
Camellia--er, you did to me all that time, playing around with my feelings
and shit??"
"No! It was honest. Camellia wasn't acting, I swear! It's easy being
her. I like being her. Even more than--being me!"
"That's crazy! You're a guy--kinda!"
"I--still feel like her."
"Well, she's sure nothing like you!" I quipped, trying to catch myself in
the wild conundrum of the statement. "How can be a mousy wimp like you
be a such sassy fox like her??"
"I'm not her now. It--doesn't work that way. Being her is a different
me because it's not."
"Right..."
"It's true. I watched you and the kinds of girls you dated and tried to
find out what about them you liked most."
I snickered. "Well, you freakin' get an 'A' because you Ru Paul in the
dog pound," I admitted, at once admiring the sly effort. "So you been
stalking me around learning my moves too, huh?"
"It--It was the only way to see what you liked."
"You also sneaked and peeked my dates too I bet, huh?" I accused and
he sheepishly nodded. "Man, you were itching for a nose remodeling!"
"It'd be worth it. Anything! But I was sure you'd like me when I was
ready to finally meet you at Reggie's party. I felt like I knew you like a--a
best friend."
I had to chuckle past my sneer at that. 'Camellia' sure knew how to
touch my buttons at that party alright. Despite the cheerleaders and
bimbettes I strung along since junior high, I was kind of jade by chicks in
jeans and scruffy sneakers and lumpy sweatshirts and loose mangy hair. I
liked girls romantic and lacy and rainbow pastels, and that's just how
Camellia stood out in Reggie's party in a soft mint-green dress with a
teasing scalloped neckline over her bodice's coy mounds and full skirt
hovering just above the nice knees of slender misty mint-filmed gams
planted in lime patent skimmer pumps, a silk scarf looped once around her
throat and draped over each shoulder and her coral-glossed eyes were
sealed for me. I remember the lump in my throat as she shyly dropped her
lashes at my approach for a dance and the way her emerald eyes flashed
with delirious joy. I felt my chest swell at how friggin' lucky I was and
how the guys all hated my luck.
I shook my head. "Jeeze, can't believe this! And you did all that just
because you've the hots for me?"
Harvey slowly nodded at the floor and I mulled the weird warped
flattery of it. I mean, it wasn't as though he did it maliciously or as a joke.
In fact, quite the opposite. One doesn't thrash their admirers, even if
they're queer, and Harvey was sure the queerest girl-guy I ever met. Queer
enough to move me in ways that were unsettling as hell. It was wrong, but
I can see why he'd be compelled to do it; I mean, I did asshole things in
my crushes too, though Harvey's gay dating straight guys on the sly took
the cake and a cigar. Besides, somehow my pride didn't feel as piqued as
thought I'd be from an outright joke or prank, and that fact was quietly
venting the steam from my ire.
There was also something else to consider, something I almost
overlooked even though it was a glaring pine.
"If you're gay, how come you always played coy about me smooching
you?" I asked, feeling oddly unabashed about it because my secret pines
were true. "We could've pet and necked ourselves soggy and I wouldn't
have known for beans until I felt you way up your damn skirt!"
Harvey looked up, sheepishness mixed with something like lost
wistfulness in his comely face and voice. "I--I wanted to...lots of times,
but I--I couldn't taker advantage of your feelings like that. Not with
something special and close as touching another like we really care about
another, not just for...for fun."
"'Fun'"? I quipped, shaking my head and yet feeling oddly gratified.
Most everyone straight knew that if there was anything gays loved doing it
was getting it on with another or an unwary dude. Had 'Camellia' dropped
her demure mein about petting I would've stroked her happy in fluttering
heartbeat, and I was sure Harvey's lavender streak would've relished it
too, and I would've never known for maybe months, depending on how
well 'she' shied me from her panty's fact.
"Well...least you're not the others," I admitted and thanked in a half
mutter as I pondered the wimpy pretty-faced nerd. Suddenly I was bitter.
Bitter that not so much that Camellia wasn't a entity or was a sly
subterfuge, but bitter because of all the great times we had and how much I
sighed at my luck indulging in her company and beauty and our quiet times
the park and the thrill of movies and the fluffy elegance of parties.
All that was now gone--no, not really. It happened. It was real. Like
Camellia was once, only she was being held hostage inside some wimpy
cocoon.
I shook wild whimsies from my skull.
"You're--pretty good being Camellia," I idly began, not really sure why
I started or really meant to say. "You--must've studied how to be a girl a
lot."
"I watched hundreds of them doing things, ever since fifth grade, I
guess."
"That's a lot of work, and you got it down pat. Too damn pat."
"Thank you..."
"Er, you--like being Camellia?"
"Yes."
"I mean a lot."
"Yes. In a way...there's more of her life in me than mine."
"So, would you rather be Camellia than gay?" I asked semi-furtively
and Harvey mulled for a second and nodded a little abashedly.
"To be near you, I...I'd stay a girl...yes."
"Huh," I was impressed. I could tell it was life-crisis thing for him,
and for him to be willing to make such a big life readjustment...
I couldn't help but grudgingly admire that.
My ultimate fan.
An awfully pretty guy.
Who was a dream babe.
Whose giggles to my teases and jokes I'll miss.
Whose nice different dresses and hairdos and shameless manners and graces
cut her apart from guy-clone girls normal today.
Whose long slow strolls in the park with me made my days and whose movie
dates made my nights. Whose warm snuggles next to me on the warm grass pointing
out animals in the clouds I was going to miss.
All this I was going to miss just because Camellia wasn't real.
All because Camellia was really a--a guy!
But--so what?
How much difference did it make before, really? It didn't matter what was
up inside her skirt or was missing in her blouse that made our times together
so great and exciting. It was her beauty, not biology that captivated me and
claim her, and Camellia was easily more feminine and romantic than most babes
I knew. It was her her charm and laughter and looks that stroked our fires, not
getting her all stroked up. We were happy and I barely had to touch her!
Yes!
Maybe I didn't have to give it all up! Maybe I could have my cake and eat
it too! Granted, I'd have to pass up the thrill of getting inside her clothes,
but that was way better than losing the excitement and joy of her company. That
can't be replaced! There was no substitute for that!
Yes!
I really don't have to give up virility hanging with a drag princess! We
could go on like before, just as long as I never forget who and what Camellia
really is my masculinity's safe!
My Georgia peach is forbidden fruit, so sweet, so luscious, so lovely--
But one poisoned nibble is curtains for my manhood and reputation.
I'll have to hold myself back and remember, but I can do this!
Just never forget!...
"Er, look..." My excuse began with an understanding voice stifled of
any wild inner wistfulness. "All the guys at school are gonna say I'm a
loser if they think that Camellia--er, you dumped me. I mean, no one just
loses a looker like her--er, you...er, like when you're her. So...so you
just--just go on playing her for a while 'till I can figure some cool way
outta this, like saying that she--er, you, moved away or something,
alright?"
Harvey looked up as though I just read a delay of executions. "Yes," he
near whispered.
"Er, good," I said with relief and anticipation, suddenly feeling
peculiarly awkward, as though I were at Camellia's door with her kid
brother, asking him for permission. "So...er, how soon can I see her
again?"
In the middle of the park concert I felt slim warm fingers bump then
twine mine and muting the thumps inside my shirt I turned and smiled back
at Camellia whose face beamed that I didn't take hir bold move as an
macho affront. But I knew s/he was being coy as a black widom spider weaving
a web for hir mate; that s/he wouldn't try to stop me or make me remember
some wild unreal truth about hir to be repulse from hir lovely gay warmth by. I
knew s/he might even coo me to throw caution in the wind and boldly jump where
no macho straight guy go ought go. The thought of being seduced by a fairy
princess like hir was both terrifying and thrilling.
And it was also the spark of our new relationship.
"Thank you for not beating Harvey up," s/he gently said as though
talking about some bullied kid brother, and I preferred it that way.
I shrugged. "I--I don't beat up on nerd--little guys."
"You had every right to."
"Maybe, but I'm not going to dump on someone who's gone overboard
liking me, you know?"
Camellia's coral-glossed lips curved and s/he gave a little pert of the head
to flounce hir flaxen mane as though subtly asserting hir femininity. "You
consider me overboard?"
I had to chuckle and behold hir amnesic cosmetic effect and bewitching
feminine mein. It was amazing how completely a boy could make over into
a babe, and more eerie how much the mind is willing to overlook reality
and fact. But then we're all just images in eaches eyes. What does it matter
what hir underlying reality is if I simply bask the shine of hir image?
"No...you're better. Way better," I said into hir sparkling emerald eyes
and feeling a weird peace and longing. Suddenly Harvey and the movie
theater and the world didn't exist or manner as my instincts and captivation
leaned to hir face and hir pale eyelashes fluttered and knit shut as hir
breathless coral-glossed lips slightly parted to berth my curious and
anxious press upon hir petal-softness, and after a few moments we parted,
and I aglow with a thrilling new life regard.
Wow!
"Man...I'm starting to think maybe I oughta break off now!" I chuckled
and emerald eyes twinkling, Camellia coyly giggled like tinkling bells.
Hey, I'm entitled to one slip and lapse of memory, right??
FIN