In Parts One and Two, Barb capitalizes on her son Kyle’s desire for a moped (a motor scooter) to propose a deal: If he wears girls’ clothes for a month, then he can get one. He makes the deal on the understanding that he can choose the clothes. He figures he will be able to find a masculine look, just as long as he wears sweatshirts bulky enough to hide the bras his mother adds to the deal. Kyle sees an easy win; his mother hopes that somehow the knowledge that he is wearing girls’ clothes will tame her reckless son. While shopping at the mall for his new clothes, Kyle finds it more difficult than he had expected to keep his cross-dressing a secret: He is teased in the girls’ department and humiliated in the men’s toilets. Barb starts to wonder whose idea it really was for her teenage son to wear a bra and panties. Hers? His? This chapter begins with an account of Kyle’s first day at school in girls’ clothes.

Anything for a Moped? -- Part 3 by: Dawn De Winter
Chapter Three: Who Knew at School?

"So how did the day go? Eventful … uneventful? Did you fool them all, Kyle?"

Barb bubbled with the questions that had been brewing since morning. Though she loved her work as a legal secretary, rarely had the workday seemed so endless. All day long she had counted the seconds until she could learn the initial outcome of their experiment.

As a mother, she wanted to hear good news — which to Barb, would mean that while no one guessed that Kyle was cross-dressing, that he was somehow being "improved" by the experience. Improved in what way? She would have had difficulty putting it in words. But she was looking for any sign that Kyle was no longer on a fast track to trouble.

She had found Kyle moping in front of the television. He was sullen and uncommunicative — not a good sign, though not unusual for a teenager. She pressed him for an answer: "How did it go, Kyle? If it went badly, you’ve got to tell me. This is not something you want to handle alone."

"It went all right, I suppose," Kyle mumbled.

"What’s that supposed to mean?"

"It means that nothing happened. Nothing. No one noticed and no one suspected, just as I told you would happen. How could anyone have known? I was, after all, wearing boys’ clothes, no matter where I bought them."

"So you’re declaring victory after one day, are you, Kyle?"

"Yeh, I guess so. It’s easy to fool them."

"Then why, dear boy, are you not more excited? You usually like to be proven right. Why are you not dancing around me boasting of your wisdom and insight? Why so sombre?"

"Nothing happened, I tell you. Nothing. I’ve rarely had a day that was so boring. Nothing happened," Kyle muttered. And then he sighed.

"Something’s bothering the boy," Barb thought, as he stalked off to his bedroom. She expected him, as usual, to test the limits of her tolerance for loud music. But, remarkably, there was silence. He was clearly brooding about something. But what? What could have happened at school to upset him so?

"Someone must have figured it out — that he was wearing girls’ clothes. Gosh, I hope he had a good explanation for them," fretted Barb. "He’s a clever kid. He must have come up with something. He’s glib enough when he needs an excuse for not doing his chores."

Had something happened? No, nothing much had happened, just as Kyle said. And that was the problem, and for him, a very big problem indeed. His day had been uneventful because virtually everyone had ignored him, including his friends.

There was no way they could have seen through his disguise, for he had carefully picked out the most masculine of the clothes he had bought. Indeed, the Levis he was wearing could have been bought in the boys’ department. And a few years ago the style had even been popular with boys. But it hadn’t been popular lately, at least not with his set. The Levis were far too tight. Only a nerd or a girl wore tight-fitting clothes to the ninth grade at Herbert Hoover High. The boys hid their scrawny physiques under layers of clothes or gigantic tee shirts that would have covered the seat of their pants, had the seat not been sagging halfway down their legs.

Kyle had made a fatal miscalculation: While it was true that the clothes were unisex, Kyle was not dressed like one of the Hoover boys. Nor was he dressed like one of the girls. His look wasn’t so much unisex as asexual.

It didn’t help that Kyle hadn’t noticed whether his panties had a telltale waistband limiting their wear to girls. Hence he had to play it safe all day: To keep his waistband from inadvertently showing, he had hiked his pants tightly into his crotch, and had tightly cinched his belt to keep them riding high. As a result, he was showing too much sock.

But worse, the tight weave of his cotton panties flattened and hid his genitals. Worst, as he normally wore loose-fitting clothes, he hadn’t thought of arranging himself for maximum display. Indeed, he had inadvertently tucked away his penis. His crotch did not, therefore, show ‘too much sock.’ Quite the opposite — he had the basket of a ten-year-old boy — or girl! Kyle looked like a eunuch.

There were a handful of students, girls and boys, who dressed like the new Kyle, but they were loners and losers. All the kids that Kyle respected, all the kids worth knowing, carefully obeyed a dress code — a different one, mind you, for each group of friends or set, but a dress code nonetheless.

Kyle’s outfit flouted all these dress codes. Ominously, the one boy he most resembled was president of the chess club; the one girl, a self-proclaimed lesbian. In a word, Kyle was decidedly un-cool.

As his friends were the most self-consciously cool students in the ninth grade, they were the first to note and to deride Kyle’s new look. A couple of the guys said he must have been toking up when he got dressed that morning. No, he must have been hung over, proffered another. A fourth friend asked him whether he had lost a bet. Yet another wondered, dangerously, whether he had borrowed his clothes from a girlfriend with whom he had been — wink, wink — spending the night.

Fortunately for Kyle, a sixth friend interjected, "No girl would be caught dead in those clothes unless she was a dyke. Did you bed a dyke, Kyle?"

"If he did, that may explain why he looks like someone cut off his dick. At least, I can’t see one," joshed Rob, who resented Kyle’s popularity with the guys.

With that remark, Kyle’s friends all glanced down to check out his crotch. No one was impressed. As their bulky clothing guarded their own secrets, they privately wondered why Kyle wanted to expose his own shortcoming.

Rob made another ‘joke’: "Maybe he’s hidden his dick so that he can attract a dyke. Is that it, Kyle, are you trying to get into a girl’s bra and panties before she figures out that you’re a guy?"

Desperate to end the banter, Kyle snarled, "I don’t think Rob has any idea of how to get into a girl’s panties, unless it’s by wearing them himself." There were a couple of snickers, but the joke fell flat.

"Now why did I say that?" Kyle asked himself. "The last thing I want is for the guys to start wondering about whether one of us is wearing panties. Jeez, if I’m not careful they’re going to start pantsing each other to see who’s wearing what."

Indeed, at that very moment, Derek tried to yank Rob’s pants down, and half-succeeded: Before the boy rescued his drooping trousers, it became clear that he was wearing Harley Davidson boxer shorts. Rob then lunged for Derek’s cargo pants, and his boxers also came briefly into view.

Kyle couldn’t wait around to see who would be targeted next. "This is juvenile," he said. "I’ve got homework to do. I’ll see you in class." He beat a hasty retreat.

"Kyle doing homework? Wow, that dude has become super weird," commented Derek as he adjusted his clothing. "Yeh weird," agreed Rob. There were several heads sadly nodding.

"Come on, guys, we’re talking about Kyle. He’s a player. I don’t know why he’s dressing like a geek today, but I promise you he’ll be back to normal tomorrow," said Kyle’s best friend, Jason, hopefully.

At lunchtime, Kyle found the cafeteria a less welcoming place. He actually had to warn one of the smaller boys away from his place at the table beside Jason, Derek, Rob and the gang. Unaccountably, they had allowed the kid to usurp his place.

When he did finally take his rightful seat, Kyle found it difficult to get into the conversation. No one seemed very interested in the topics he raised, even when he tried to talk about heavy metal bands. He was getting the cold shoulder for some reason.

Even so, Jason challenged him to a friendly game of one-on-one basketball after school. Kyle immediately accepted; Jason was easy to beat, and his sound thrashing should prove to everyone that Kyle was one of the guys, no matter how oddly he dressed.

Yet Kyle fretted all afternoon about the basketball match. Had it been wise for him to agree to a game in which he would be constantly raising his arms above his head? Would he be showing off the top of his panties, as his fleece top rose and his jeans slipped? Even if they weren’t recognized as girls’ wear, what would his friends think of his wearing cotton briefs? None of them did anymore.

Kyle worried even more about his bra. Indeed, it had been bothering him all day. It was always there. He could not forget for a moment that he was wearing it. Always he could feel its presence, as the sports bra hugged his chest. As he moved, it moved.

Kyle became obsessed with the bra, and by the fact that he was sitting in a classroom dressed like a girl. Sure, the clothes looked masculine, but that damn bra kept reminding him that he had acquired them all in the girl’s department. It was the bra that told him that his crotch looked sex-less because he was wearing panties.

As he looked downward, he could swear he could see the bra every time he moved, despite the two layers of clothing encasing it. He also thought he saw a panty line. By two thirty, all he could see were the outline of the bra and panties. His mind had developed x-ray eyes. "Can everyone see them?" he feverishly wondered, as he nervously looked about. Mostly, however, he slouched, hoping to bunch up the material on his tee shirt and fleece top to bury the bra further.

Kyle’s spirits were still slouching as school let out. To be sure, they brightened somewhat when Jason showed up in the corridor with a basketball, but Kyle wondered where the rest of the gang had gone.

"Oh, they’ve all gone over to Rob’s house to shoot pool. His dad just got a new table." Jason replied.

"I didn’t know anything about that," Kyle complained. "No one told me. Did they ask you along?"

"Oh sure, but I’d already promised to shoot hoops with ya, and so here I am," Jason said, as he steered Kyle towards the exit and the basketball courts outside. Of these there were four, three of which were hogged by older students.

The fourth court was, however, being used by three thirteen-year-olds. They looked small enough to move. Kyle reached them first, and so he tried first to get them to see the wisdom of ending their game, but they, having sized him up by his nondescript clothes, refused to budge. Kyle was totally unprepared for such effrontery, for his "heavy metal" look had in the past year allowed him to intimidate younger boys. Stunned, he deliberated his next move.

As he did, Jason took charge. He told the kids to scram. They hastily did, as no one in the eighth grade was willing to rumble with a muscular, older teen wearing black sneakers, sloppy black denim jeans, a massive key chain, and a black, death’s head, armless tee shirt from the national tour of the "Rotting Corpses" heavy-metal band.

Kyle’s game thus started badly — with a withering look of disgust from Jason. And it got steadily worse, as Kyle played like a dork. He blamed the girls’ clothes. Every time he tried to run past Jason, he’d suddenly worried about his pants drooping enough to expose his panties. And he had good reason to fret, for after ten minutes, Jason did mutter, "I can’t believe you’re not wearing boxers. Briefs? Who wears briefs anymore?"

A few minutes later, Jason, having just gone ahead 8 to 2, asked Kyle whether his mother had picked out his underwear that morning. "Cooper Sport? I’ve never heard of that brand, never seen it in a store. Where did your mom buy them for ya?"

"I don’t know where she got them," Kyle answered, as he flubbed yet another shot. "I wore them today to please her. She thinks guys look best in cotton briefs — you know, sexy-looking."

"Well, they don’t help your game any," Jason sneered. "You’re throwing like a girl today. You tell your mom that only geezers and fags wear Jockey briefs these days. You can also inform her," Jason said as he won their first game 11-2, "that her son’s game is only as good as the clothes he wears. And what you’re wearing today is crap."

"Thanks for nothing. A lot you know," Kyle rebutted, as he started their second game. Yet again he undershot the basket.

"Creampuff! You shoot like a sissy girl," razzed Jason.

It was true: Kyle was playing like a sissy. Not only was he running daintily, so as to minimize the chances of his pants falling yet another notch, but he was also panicking each time Jason clutched or grabbed him as Kyle drove for the basket. Early in the game Jason had unwittingly yanked on the back of Kyle’s bra. He had yelped with pain when the bra snapped back into position.

Thereafter, Kyle avoided close contact, for he was terrified that Jason would figure out his most dangerous secret if the boy got his hands on it a second or third time. As Jason realized that Kyle was avoiding the rough-and-tumble they usually enjoyed, he became openly disdainful of Kyle’s game. Abandoning finesse, Jason began to run at Kyle, who failing to hold his ground, allowed one easy basket after another.

The second game was another rout. This time Kyle failed to make a single basket. To avoid giving Jason an opportunity to grab his bra, he was throwing from outside the key; at such a distance, he would have missed most of his shots even on a good day. But today was far a good one, for each time that Kyle raised his arms to toss the ball, he was instantly reminded of his bra, as it shifted ever so slightly upward.

Terrified that Jason would see the bra move, Kyle invariably failed to extend his arms enough to put any power into his throw. It often fell short of the rim, occasioning each time a comment from Jason about his limp wrist or girlish form.

The three games were such a fiasco — 33 to 3 — that Kyle could count only one blessing: None of his other friends had been witness to it. Indeed, there had been only two kids watching the game. He knew the name of neither, though he had often seen them around; they were in his year at school, though in none of his classes. They both had a bad reputation: the boy, it was said, had propositioned a male classmate; and the girl, a cross-dresser, was assumed to be a lesbian.

Apparently they didn’t know each other, or if they did, were on the outs, for they sat far apart. Even so, boy and girl were staring at Kyle for most of the game. He found their attention unnerving and distracting. Had they figured out that he was wearing girls’ clothes? Is that why they were watching him? Or — and this question so shook Kyle that he not only lost the ball but tripped over his own feet — were they attracted to his new look? Did the boy see a fellow sissy? Did the girl mistake him for a dyke?

Eventually every ordeal must end, if only because of darkness. Yet it wasn’t only nightfall that cast a shadow over the basketball court, it was also Jason’s frowning countenance. He was disgusted with Kyle’s performance, and beginning to agree with Rob that, unlikely as it might seem, their friend had turned from a player into a wuss in a single day.

The scowl on Jason’s face, as they split, haunted Kyle’s evening. Several times he decided to renege on the deal and to revert to his regular clothes. About ten o’clock, he even broached the subject with his mother: "Mom, I don’t think the bet was a good idea. Maybe we should call it a draw."

"A draw? How is it a draw, Kyle, if you back out of the deal after a single day? Are you ready to admit defeat? Are you now willing to agree that girls and boys dress very differently, and that anyone can tell which is which, Calvin Klein be damned?"

"No, I’m not ready to say that. No one thought I looked like a girl today. That wasn’t the problem. I was right about the clothes. They’re boy’s clothes, sure enough."

"Then, what’s the problem, Kyle? Why do you want to end the experiment?"

"Because, mom, everyone thought I looked like a nerd."

"I don’t think you look like a nerd. You look good to me. And I bet that all the girls preferred the new Kyle. You’re more neatly dressed; you look less like a hood. I bet your girlfriend praised your new clothes. What did she say?"

"My girlfriend?"

"Yes, your girlfriend. What did she think of your new look?"

Oh yeh, the girlfriend. He was supposed to have one. The only girl who had paid him any attention had been the black-haired girl at the ball court, the ‘lesbian.’ Did she like his new look? Apparently yes, for she had been following his every move.

So Kyle answered: "My girlfriend thought I looked okay."

"So why change, son? Let’s give the experiment another couple of days. All right?" Barb wanted him to stay in the bra and panties for a while longer. They had not yet had time to tame him. Maybe they never would. But they needed more than a single day to work their magic.

Later, at bedtime when she got to see her son in his bra and panties after brushing his teeth, she realized that she definitely wanted to keep the experiment alive. Not only did his hairless torso look very feminine, albeit immature, but he also seemed to be moving like a woman. He had glided rather than clomped down the hall.

Later she realized he was probably just trying to avoid being seen by her, but at the time he looked like a lingerie model on a catwalk. That night in bed she puzzled at her joy in seeing her son in a bra and panties. Was she trying to turn him into a girl? Or was she simply hoping that a more feminine Kyle would enjoy a longer, better life?

She wasn’t sure about her motives. All she knew for certain was that she hoped Kyle would continue to wear girls’ clothes occasionally even after he had won his moped. That night she dreamt several times about Kyle; each time he was wearing a different dress.

Kyle’s dreams did not awaken him, and the next morning he was sure of only one thing: that he had an erotic dream about a girl on a moped. He couldn’t remember much about her, save that her hair had been blond — like his.

Chapter Four: Who Knew on the Second Day?

As Kyle wasn’t keen on testing the school’s reaction for a second time, he not surprisingly slept through his alarm. He had to dress in such a hurry that he had to put on the first things he found. Unfortunately for Kyle, they were a two-toned, green-striped bra and panties, a white tee shirt, a dark blue pullover, and the girl’s jeans with the zipper flap on the ‘wrong,’ right-hand side of the crotch.

It was a small thing, a detail that most kids were unlikely to notice. Girls, for example, were far more likely to be checking out a guy’s eyes or buttocks. As for the boys, they weren’t supposed to be checking out a guy’s fly; and they rarely did.

The grand exception that day was Steve, who had become obsessed with Kyle’s body since Steve had, thanks to the new, tighter clothes, finally gotten to see it. Something about Kyle’s look had struck Steve as fey, and for the first time in months Steve had a faint hope that Kyle might be gay too. He had been watching Kyle for more than a year, but had sadly written him off as a possible date when Kyle began to dress like a bad boy and to hang out with a tough crowd.

But Kyle had dramatically changed his look, and Steve had begun to hope again. His spirits had soared after watching Kyle shoot hoops. "Gosh, he throws like a girl," Steve thought. "But he’s butch enough for me." He began to fixate on Kyle.

The next morning Steve hung around Kyle’s homeroom trying to get a glimpse of him heading into class. As it was dangerous to look a boy in the eye, Steve’s eyes dropped as he saw Kyle walk toward him. Soon they were staring at Kyle’s groin.

Steve was delighted to see that the jeans were even tighter than yesterday’s pair, though he was disappointed to see that Kyle (tightly contained by his panties) seemed to have little to flaunt. Just before Kyle walked past him and into the classroom, Steve suddenly realized that there was something odd about the jeans: The zipper seemed to be designed for the left hand to open, instead of the right hand, as was the case with all the pants that Steve had worn.

Fascinated by this exception, Steve began checking out the zipper flap of each student he passed, both boys and girls. That day he gained a reputation for being a creep, as well as a homosexual. But his research paid off. By noon he became the first student at Herbert Hoover to know that Kyle was wearing girls’ jeans.

Steve was ecstatic. He was definitely going to ask Kyle out on a date. "He’s going to be my boyfriend, my very first boyfriend," was the mantra he hummed to himself all morning. He would make his first play for Kyle, he decided, in the cafeteria at noontime.

In the old days — that is, two days ago — he couldn’t have gotten close to Kyle at lunch, for Kyle ate with his gang, with Jason, Derek, Rob and the other boys in black. But none of them had liked the way he was dressing, and to teach him a lesson they had invited Harvie, a ‘four-eyed’ computer nerd, to occupy his place at the table. They hoped Kyle would get the message that,if he didn’t change his attire, they’d rather eat with a dweeb.

And so Kyle was eating alone when Steve asked if he could sit across from him. Kyle, brooding, didn’t even look up as he waved his hand in casual assent. Thus, Steve was well seated before Kyle realized that he had just agreed to eat with the school’s ‘fag’. Kyle groaned; then buried himself in his food. "Maybe if I finish real fast, no one will notice us," Kyle hoped.

"Hi, my name is Steve. And you’re Kyle, right?" Steve proffered his hand in friendship.

Kyle felt he had no choice but to accept it, for looking around, he saw that many eyes were watching, and there were many tongues about to wag. If he spurned Steve too visibly, somehow Barb would find out and he’d catch hell for his ‘bigotry.’ Without looking up, Kyle brushed his hand against Steve’s.

"Yeh, I’m Kyle. But I’m in no mood for chitchat. It’s been a rough day, you understand."

"Oh sure. I just wanted to say hello, and to tell you that I really admire your courage."

"My courage?" puzzled Kyle, for the first time looking at his table companion.

"You know — your jeans. It really takes guts to wear girls’ jeans to school. I don’t think I could do it."

Had anyone heard? Kyle looked nervously around. No one nearby seemed to be eavesdropping, and the bedlam in the cafeteria meant that Steve’s voice hadn’t carried far. Even so, Kyle admonished Steve to lower his voice, and then said, "What are you talking about? I’m not wearing girl’s clothes. I’d heard that playing with yourself makes you go blind. I guess you’re the proof."

Steve was too anxious to ingratiate himself to take offense, and so he replied, "I know the truth, Kyle, but I won’t tell anyone. I swear, I really won’t. But if you don’t want anyone else to know, you’d better pull down your shirt so that it covers your zipper."

"My zipper?" Kyle then looked down, and forewarned, immediately grasped the truth: These jeans could not have been bought in the boys’ department. "Cripes," muttered Kyle. He pulled out his tee shirt, as it was longer than his pullover; it did manage to cover his pant zipper, if he made sure that he was wearing his jeans high — you know, like a nerd.

Rearranged, Kyle started to make a lame excuse, but Steve cut him off: "You don’t have to explain. I like the jeans. They look real good on you, especially in the rear."

Kyle didn’t like hearing a gay boy praise his butt, but he was not in a position to rank him out. Kyle needed to ensure that the boy would keep his secret, and so he said, "I’ve got to wear girls’ pants for a month in order to win a bet, to win a moped. You keep this a secret, and I’ll give you a ride on it."

"Don’t worry," responded Steve. "I don’t give away my friend’s secrets; and we’re friends, right?"

"Yeh, we’re friends. I’ve got to go now."

"Kyle, will you give me a real handshake to confirm our friendship?"

Kyle offered his hand, and Steve grasped it, refusing to let go for — in the eyes of those who were watching — a suspiciously long time. As the audience had included most of his friends, Kyle’s reputation sank a notch. While none of his friends really thought he was dressed like a girl — that had just been joshing — they were now wondering, for real, whether he was dressed like a ‘sissy’. Certainly, he seemed to have a ‘fairy’ for a friend.

Kyle felt hostile eyes boring into his back as he left the cafeteria. "Did they see my bra?" he wondered. "If they did, they’ll think I’m Steve’s girlfriend! Groan."

Kyle decided that he’d have to do something dramatic to regain his friends’ respect. But what? "A skateboard stunt. That’s it. That’ll impress them. And then they’ll want to eat with Kyle the Man again. If I’m back to sitting with the guys, that sissy will give me a wide berth. He won’t ask to sit with Jason and Rob. That’d be quick suicide for the little queer."

Kyle spread the word that he was going to skateboard down Suicide Hill, a feat achieved only by a few brave souls, and not yet by any of his crowd. To trump everyone, Kyle announced that he would skateboard blindfolded down the hill. As it was a one-way city street, he could count on his buddies to block traffic long enough for him to make the descent. To stay alive, all he had to do was cleave to the middle of the road, as it took two unseen curves, and then to brake quickly before he collided with traffic crossing at the T-junction or impaled himself on the picket fence guarding the bottom of the hill.

Kyle was confident that he could pull off the stunt because he had been practising for months. While he had never done the hill in one long swoop, and never with his eyes covered, he figured he knew where the curves were and could negotiate them safely. His erstwhile friends tried to talk sense to him, and he might have relented had not Steve publicly implored him not to take the risk. It was so embarrassing to have Steve openly worry about his safety that Kyle had no choice but to attempt his fool stunt.

He probably would have killed himself, for he misjudged the first curve, and was heading for oblivion until unseen hands shoved him completely off-course and sprawling into some plastic garbage pails. They absorbed his momentum, breaking his fall, but not without some injury. A used mop almost put out his right eye. Fortunately for Kyle, he got off with a haematoma. Within an hour, he’d have the blackest ‘black eye’ of his accident-prone life.

Kyle was furious at the intervention, especially as it had left him covered with rotting garbage. He wouldn’t calm down even after being told that the girl had saved his life.

Now that was too much! Not only had he mucked up his stunt, but also his friends and rivals had all seen a girl push him off the road in order, they agreed, to rescue him. A girl! It was humiliating.

"Which girl?" he asked, without any idea of what answer could conceivably salve his wounded pride.

The answer was not comforting: "It was the dyke," Derek said. "You know — the girl who’s always wearing guy clothes. She must really like you. She took quite a risk."

Then Rob insinuated: "I didn’t realize you knew her, but then I didn’t know until today that you’re a close buddy of precious little Stevie."

More sadly, Jason summed up the situation: "It looks to me, Kyle, that you’ve finally found your true friends. I guess birds of a feather do flock together."

"Yeh, and to think how many times I showered in front of Kyle. It sure makes you shudder," said Jerry, another of his fast-fading friends. "Let’s go, guys. Let’s shoot some pool at Rob’s place."

When they stalked off, Kyle was alone. There was no sign of the girl. She had apparently fled the moment his friends had come to investigate his collision with the garbage pails.

He noticed as he straggled homeward that his jeans were ripped. "Good," he snarled. "At least I won’t accidentally wear them again." When he got home, the mirror proved he had a whopper of a shiner. "Jeez," he lamented, "it’s going to remind everyone of my accident. It will get everyone talking about the dyke who saved poor little Kyle."

He decided he had to hide the black eye. But how? There was only one way: his mother’s makeup. He’d have to wear it. He deliberated waiting until she got home to have her show him how to apply it, but decided she’d go ballistic if she found out about his blindfolded stunt.

She had a way of worming such information out of him, and if she did it this time, then she’d definitely not give him the moped. If she killed their deal, then he would have gone through two days of Hell for nothing. Nope, she couldn’t know about the shiner.

To learn about makeup, Kyle did what any modern boy would do — he went onto the Internet, where he soon found some hints at the website of a magazine for teenage girls. He learned about foundation, about cleansers, and about applying his makeup evenly. He even added some blue eyeshade to darken the veins under his eyes to their original worried hue. He had hoped to limit the makeup to the impacted area, but soon realized that it would show too much unless he did his entire face.

He was delighted with himself when he looked in the mirror: "Yep, no one will ever know I got a black eye." And then, because he had read that girls had to touch up their makeup during the day to keep it looking natural, he ‘borrowed’ one of his mother’s compacts. He felt distinctly odd as he did; somehow, he had crossed another boundary, but he wasn’t sure which.

When Barb got home, they had another desultory conversation about his day. He was not going to give out much information. However, she got him talking after she discovered that her compact was missing.

"Have you seen it, Kyle? You know it’s one of my favorites. I’ve had the case since I was a teenager. Do you know where it is?"

"Er, I’ve got it."

"You? And why would you want it?" She then came over to where he was slouching in a chair, and hand on his chin, turned his face toward her. "You’re wearing makeup, aren’t you?"

"Yeh," Kyle whispered.

"Well, I’d like an explanation."

Kyle mulled over his options: If he told the truth, he’d surely lose the moped. Yet if he lied, his mother would conclude that he wanted to be a girl. She’d think he was a transvestite! What to do, what to do? He decided that honesty was not the best policy, for his mother might still believe that he wanted to wear makeup, thinking him a sissy, even as she vetoed the moped.

And so Kyle prevaricated: "Well, you know that everything’s unisex these days. Girls wear boys’ clothes, and the guys are wearing earrings and makeup. A lot of the rock bands wear makeup. You’ve seen Kiss, right?" He had named a band of geezers, hoping she’d recognize the name from her youth. And she did.

"Kyle, you don’t exactly look like one of the musicians in Kiss. Your makeup is far too tame. Are you really telling me that you’re going to wear makeup to school?"

"Well sure, as an experiment. I’ll try it a few times, but I’m sure I won’t be wearing any after I get my moped." Did she get the hint? If she wanted to keep her son out of makeup, she’d better give him a moped pronto.

Barb didn’t seize the hint. Instead, she said, "It’s your life, Kyle. If you want to wear makeup to school, that’s your privilege. But I want my compact back. I’m going out this evening for a meeting and I’ll buy something for you at Walgreen’s."

Kyle didn’t know what to say. Obviously, he had to give back the compact. And just as obviously, it seemed he had no choice now but to wait for his mother to return with his very own makeup. He wasn’t pleased with the way the evening was going.

Nor was Barb. The meeting of the Society for the Preservation of the Prairie Dog had become, thanks to Mrs. Lancer, a crushing bore. She barely knew the lady, yet she refused to leave Barb alone. And why? Because of Kyle.

Kyle, it seemed, had become her son Steve’s best friend. All he could talk about for the past two evenings was Kyle. "You know, Barb, I think it’s wonderful that Kyle has befriended Steve, for my son has been so terribly lonely. It’s tough being the only gay kid in a high school, I can assure you. Thank God, he has at last found a true friend."

"What, the only gay kid at Hoover? Your son is gay?" interrogated Barb, suddenly anxious to learn more.

"Why yes, I thought you knew that. All the students know about him, at least after he asked Gerry Farwell for a date in eighth grade. The boy had a big mouth and he announced to the entire school that Steve was as bent as the antenna on that lavender teletubbie. Since then, poor Steve has been a total pariah. It’s been so hard on him."

"And Kyle, my Kyle, is now his buddy? That doesn’t sound like Kyle. I must confess to you, Elvira, that Kyle sometimes makes some awfully bigoted remarks — not about your son, mind you, but about gays in general."

"Barb, you should forgive him those comments. They were probably a defense mechanism. Kyle didn’t want to admit his true nature."

"His tr.tr.true nature?" Barb stuttered.

"Why yes, your son is gay, isn’t he? Steve certainly believes he is. Why else would Kyle risk the school’s scorn by eating with Steve?"

"Kyle is eating with Steve? Kyle told me he hangs out at lunch with his buddies in the black shirts," Barb rebutted.

"Barb, I didn’t mean to disturb you. I thought you knew about Kyle. You always struck me as the kind of mother in whom a homosexual son would confide. But I guess that’s difficult for Kyle, for he’s just now coming out. Steve has known he’s gay since he was a toddler."

"I guess that’s so," mumbled Barb dejectedly. Had their happy family come to this: that Kyle was gay and afraid to tell her that he was dating Steve? What a sorry mess. She had hoped Kyle would feel free to tell her anything. "Well, I guess I now know why he wants to wear makeup," sighed Barb.

The bombshell exploded, she thereafter avoided Mrs. Lancer, who in any case no longer seemed anxious to talk now that she had confided her "good news."

On the way home, a dazed Barb shopped at the all-night pharmacy. There she bought a starter makeup kit for Kyle — the sort of thing one bought a twelve-year-old girl. And then she made an impulse purchase: a package of three panties for Kyle. They were cheap cotton panties, but she bought them because they were three shades of pink.

"I’ve got to know what game Kyle is playing," she told herself, "and these panties will help me to know. If he starts wearing pink, then I’ll know that the whole ‘bet’ has been a charade, a ruse to gull me into letting him cross-dress."

But cross-dressing didn’t make any sense, she thought as she drove the last leg of her journey homeward. If Kyle and Steve were both gay and ‘dating,’ was it likely that Steve would want Kyle to cross-dress?

"I thought gays liked leather," she thought. "Do some of them look for transvestites? I guess so. Oh my, if they start dating, I may have to accept my son going out as the ‘girlfriend.’"

She then chided herself. "What’s wrong with you? Just last night you were saying to yourself that you hoped Kyle would continue to wear girls’ clothing even after he got his moped. And now that it looks like he’s a budding transvestite, you panic. Shape up, girl."

What was wrong? There was clearly something wrong, and Barb finally had to admit that while she hoped there’d be a little pink in Kyle’s life, that she was far from thrilled at the possibility of lavender.

"I want grandchildren," she wailed. "Maybe, it’s not too late. I’ve got to find him a big brother to straighten him out. I’ve just got to."

Kyle was surprised to see her so distraught. He was surprised that his makeup had bothered her so much. Could she actually believe that he intended to wear it ever after? He’d get rid of it, he knew, the moment his shiner faded away. In the meantime, he was quite pleased to have his own makeup kit. It made life simpler.

The package of panties he liked much less. Indeed, he loathed it. Pink! What was his mother thinking? He told her in no uncertain terms that he’d never wear anything pink, even on a dare. He stomped off to his bedroom without the package. But Barb added the three pink panties to his lingerie the following morning after he had left for school.

That night Barb’s nightmares took her back to the Bois de Boulonge in Paris and to the world of Brazilian transsexuals. She wasn’t sure whether Kyle was one of them, but the most outrageous tart, a mere youngster with 40-inch tits, seemed to be wearing a two-toned orange bra-and-panty set.

As for Kyle, it took so much effort to remove his makeup for the first time — that he, quite remarkably, fell asleep without first playing with himself. "I’m too tired," he murmured, "and I’ve got to get up real early to put that makeup back on." The following morning there were no dreams he remembered.

Continued in Part 4