Princess For Hire: The Second Semester

Part 4
By Melanie Ezell

It's the weekend, and Becky and Sarah are all ready for a little fun out on the town!

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Part 4: A Date With A Princess

-10-

Things were, to put it lightly, interesting for the next week and a half. The whispers were quick to start the next morning when I arrived to class in my girl's uniform again, and continued to grow throughout the weekend, when I remained a girl even on our days off. Monday saw my meeting with Mr. Uchiha to let him know what I was doing, to which he only smiled and nodded, and the entirety of that week things continued to swirl around me.

Things finally started to calm down on Friday, for which I was grateful. Now it was Saturday, and Sarah and I had special plans for this day.

"Where are you two off to?" Mr. Barber, this semester's house attendant, asked us as we bounced down the stairs dressed for the day.

"We got a day pass," Sarah said, "so we're meeting up with Leslie and Andrew for a walk downtown."

"Oh," he said, disappointed, "I'm afraid I scheduled the room move for today."

"I'm sorry, the room move?" I asked.

"To the transgendered room next to Sarah's."

"...Oh. Umm, can't it wait until tomorrow?" I had hoped that they had forgotten about the room situation, or that Leslie and Sarah had been wrong, but apparently they hadn't, and they weren't, respectively.

Mr. Barber huffed. "Well, I guess I can reschedule. You girls have fun today."

"Thank you," we said in practiced unison. It was something that Sarah had wanted to do, so I had reluctantly agreed to it, though I had to admit to enjoying the expressions on people's faces when we pulled it off.

Mr. Barber simpy shook his head and waved us off, so without further interruption we hurried to the front of the school, where the bus was already waiting for us to head out.

The way the school handled weekend passes was interesting to say the least. Of the nearly four hundred students who attended the school, about twenty-five passes were granted each weekend. Princesses usually had priority second only to the senior class, and of course, exceptions would be made for those who had family who would pick them up as opposed to using the school's bus and escorts, though permission slips were still needed, and no student would be granted more than one weekend pass a month without good reason, hence why Sarah and I had been so adamant about using ours.

Of course there were ulterior motives as well. It had been Sarah's idea that if I were truly interested in giving Andrew an honest shot that we had to go on a date, and if we were going to go on a date, then she was going to drag Leslie along on one of their own, and if we were both going on dates then we might as well double. And so our weekend had been set, leaving me much more nervous than I had been expecting.

"Relax, it'll be fun!"

Leslie and Andrew were already on the bus, having each taken a seat on opposite sides of the aisle and holding us spots. As soon as I slid in Andrew wrapped his arm around my shoulder and gave me a light squeeze.

"You seem nervous."

"Nervous? I'm not nervous. Why would I be nervous?"

"She's nervous because it's your first 'date' date," Sarah said, leaning over the aisle and poking me in the side. "Ease up, have fun!"

Andrew leaned down, his mouth close enough to my ear I could feel his breath. "If you don't feel comfortable with this, we don't have to do it."

I shivered at his closeness. Geez, this was going to be difficult. "No, I want to. I need to. If we're actually... boyfriend and girlfriend, then going on a date is kind of a necessary part of the whole 'dating' thing, you know?"

He chuckled. "I would think so," he said, nodding.

"SO," I reached up and held the hand wrapped around my shoulder. "Let's do this."

"Alright."

None of us said much on the bus ride into town, Leslie and Sarah too busy making moon-eyes at each other, while I leaned against Andrew's shoulder and thought about things.

Okay, so I had admitted to myself I liked a guy. That was easy enough. "Yeah, right," my inner monologue said, before I told it to shut up. Really, though, admitting I liked him was the easy part. Dealing with the repercussions of that were harder.

How do I react around him? I suppose I could just act like I've always seen girls act in movies and books with their boyfriends, but that doesn't seem like me, even if I am trying the whole "girl" thing out for a whirl. I felt him shift beneath me, and that brought my current situation into sharper relief.

I was cuddling with him on the bus ride into town for our first date. Holy crap, not just my first date with a guy, but my first date ever.

I was doomed.

"You alright? You look really pale."

"Huh?" I looked up into his concerned face, and forced a smile. "Yeah, I'm okay."

"Good," he said, leaning down and kissing my forehead softly.

Andrew really liked me. I liked him. Whew, okay. I can make this work.

"So what do you want to do while we're in town today?" I asked him.

"I dunno. Walk around a bit, maybe grab something to eat. Mostly just spend time with you."

"Right answer," I said quietly to myself as I settled back into his side, finally ready for my date.

-11-

"You seriously want ice cream? In the middle of January?"

"Hey! First of all, it's almost the END of January. Secondly, how can you not want ice cream?"

Leslie just shook his head, trying unsuccessfully to ward off the affect of Sarah's puppy-eyed pout.

"You know she won't give up until you buy her ice cream," Andrew said, laughing.

"And if you buy her some, I'll have Andrew buy me some, just to even things out."

"Yeah, we'll -- wait, what?" Andrew's voice drifted off into confusion.

Sarah and Leslie both started laughing, which led to me laughing, and Andrew catching up not far behind. With smiles on all our faces, we headed into the ice cream shop Sarah had introduced me to the semester before.

I did pay for my own ice cream, though. And Andrew's, to make it up to him for my teasing.

Our date day had gone quite well, I was more than pleased to say. Being winter, many of the more interesting shops were closed down until tourist season started in another couple of months. That was no deterrent to us, though, as we took advantage of the lack of traffic to take our time exploring as much of the downtown area as we could in the time we had available.

Sarah tried to take the opportunity to embarrass Leslie and Andrew by dragging them into one of the more risque clothing shops, only to have her plan backfire when Leslie started offering her suggestions while Andrew and I laughed at some of the outrageous outfits that people buy thinking they made them attractive. I was happy to learn that Andrew was just as confused by people's attraction to feathers, fur, and costumes as I was, though he did blush quite a bit when I noticed him eyeing a schoolgirl outfit and teased him about not getting enough of them during classes.

After that we had gone for food, at Mogwai's of course. It seemed that even most of the locals had opted to stay home, the weather still being bitterly cold and threatening snow, leaving us with virtually free reign of the antique jukebox and pinball machines the place was known for.

Then, of course, had been the requisite romantic walk around the park. The pond was iced over, though not thick enough to walk or skate on, but it was still beautiful to look at, watching what was left of the dead leaves blowing across the surface of the ice.

That was what had led to Sarah's craving for ice cream, hence our departure for the parlor down the street. Through the entire walk through the park, and even through eating our ice creams, Andrew's arm had never left my shoulder, and not only had I been glad for the warmth, but I was rapidly growing more comfortable with the feeling of him holding me so close.

It was a nice feeling.

As was to be expected, it was at the exact moment that I had finally relaxed completely into our "date" that it was time to head back to the bus for school, not without a few less-than-happy looks from the staff who had accompanied us for our so public displays of affection. I had heard the whispering at school, and I knew that even among the staff there was plenty of confusion when it came to just what I was doing, but I decided to just ignore them and play things by my own rules until someone said something, which none of them seemed intent on doing.

At Sarah's urging, we didn't let the end of our trip into town slow our date down any. Once back on campus, we went about arranging a movie night in the lounge.

"I say we watch something romantic."

"Uh, no," I said, giving Sarah a lopsided grin. "I saw what your idea of 'romantic' was back at your place. No offense, but I doubt either Andrew or Leslie would be able to stay awake through one of your period dramas."

"I dunno, 'Gangs of New York' was pretty good."

"We're talking more along the lines of 'Pride and Prejudice,'" I told Andrew, drawing a wince from him. "Hey, it's not that bad. I just didn't think you two would be up for something like that."

"Uhm, no."

"Why not 'Transformers?"

We all glared at Leslie, who shrank back. "You ALWAYS want to watch 'Transformers,'" Sarah said exasperatedly. "I know you have a thing for Megan Fox, but come on."

"The Road Warrior?"

"Nope."

"The Lion King?"

"We're not five!"

"Stomp The Yard?"

"...What?"

"Priscilla, Queen of the Desert?"

"You're kidding, right?"

"Alright, how about Maverick?"

Apparently Andrew was the only one of us who had seen it, but after he described it to us we all agreed it sounded like fun. Soon we were set up in the lounge, the flatscreen TV running the DVD, and a few other students trickling in to join us. Unlike the teachers, though, none of them looked at us twice as we snuggled on the couches, watching the movie, and that was perfectly fine by me.

-12-

"Urgh!"

I glared at Andrew. "Come on, those are the same bags you brought up to my room, what, two weeks ago?" Had it really been that recently? "They aren't any heavier now than they were then."

"What, not even a little sympathy?"

"I didn't tell you to get both at once."

"*Sigh* Alright then," he said, suddenly picking up pace and acting much less burdened. "It was worth a shot."

I fought down the chuckle that threatened to come out, not wanting to encourage him.

Moving rooms turned out to be much less of a chore than I had expected it would be. With few personal belongings in my room other than my clothes and a handful of books, it took precisely one load each for Sarah, Leslie, Andrew and I to move all of my things to the room connected to hers. Another twenty minutes, and I was unpacked and ready to go.

"So what now?"

"Now Sarah and Becky follow me to their first photo shoot," Mr. Uchiha said, strolling in through the open door of my new room.

Sarah groaned. "But we just finished moving and unpacking things! We'll be all sweaty and stuff."

I stared at her. "You carried one box and hung up my uniforms. You're all sweaty after that?"

"Not really, but I'm not getting photographed without cleaning up first."

Mr. Uchiha nodded. "Very well, then, Sandra expected as much. How's the new room so far?"

"Well," I said, looking around. "It's a room. It's not all that different than my other one, though it might take me a bit to get used to the new position of the bed." While my old room had been oriented with my head to the east, the new room had me turned west, a change that always left me feeling odd the first few days. I would have turned the bed, or flipped what end I slept at, but this kept the layout as close to my old room as possible.

Mr. Uchiha smiled. "I'm glad you seem to have settled in so quickly. I'll tell Sandra you will be ready in twenty minutes, she'll be waiting in the lounge."

"Alright, sir, thank you," Sarah said.

"No, girls, thank you. And have fun."

As soon as Andrew and Leslie left, Leslie somewhat reluctantly, Sarah and I took turns in the shower before getting dressed in our nicest school uniforms and heading downstairs.

"There you are," Sandra said with a smile as we entered the room. She stepped around us a couple of times, nodding to herself, before pulling out a legal pad and starting to write. "Alright, I think that for today your uniforms will be fine. Most of the clothes I was hoping to get you to eventually wear aren't appropriate for how cold it is at the moment anyhow. Now, if the two of you will follow me we can get started." She picked up a pair of large black bags that neither Sarah nor I had noticed and headed out the front doors, leaving me and Sarah with little choice but to follow her quickly.

From that moment on, the rest of our day was filled with posing, moving to a new location, watching Sandra set up her lights like she wanted them, and posing again. At first it was kind of annoying, being bossed around and told how to stand.

"Backs straighter."

"Alright, now lean over her shoulder and point to a page in the book."

"No, no, you don't look natural enough. Be looser."

After a while though, Sandra was correcting us less and less, and it started to be a little fun.

We finally finished up after about three hours, and Sandra gave us a beaming smile as she packed up her cameras and lights for the final time. "You girls did great. I'll probably be back some time later this week to do a few more posed shots once I've chosen the male models to join you. I was expecting this to take much longer, but if the two of you can keep this up I can have all the shots I need by the end of February, except maybe the warm-weather ones."

"Thanks! It was fun," Sarah told her. I just nodded, exhausted from the constant posing. It had been fun, but it was also tiring, having to hold the poses she wanted or repeat the actions she wanted to catch mid-motion over and over. I was glad it was over, but in a small way I was also looking forward to the next session.

We left Sandra at the entrance to the dorm hall and headed up to our rooms. I didn't know about Sarah, but I was tired enough to fall asleep, and that was exactly what I had planned until dinner rolled around.

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I was standing in a room, looking out on a crowd as cameras flashed around me. I could feel the sweat dripping down my back, but I forced myself to smile out into the darkness over the heads of the people everywhere around me. I was on a small stage, and there was a microphone in front of me. Just as I began to feel like the tension was too much to handle, a man with greased-back hair stepped up next to me, smiling through his teeth into his own microphone.

"Welcome to 'Ask And Tell,' Beck, and might I say you look lovely this evening," he said in an announcer's voice.

"Uh, thanks," I responded nervously. Looking down I saw that I was wearing a lilac dress made of some kind of soft shimmery material, with a neckline that provided just a hint of cleavage. When had I put this on? "It's a pleasure to be here?"

"It's a pleasure to have you," he said, his voice even greasier than his hair. With a leer towards my chest he settled into a chair I couldn't recall seeing there before, waving to one that had appeared behind me. "Sit down and talk with me, tell us all what it's like."

"What what's like?"

He laughed, and the people in the room around us laughed with him. "Why, being the first guy to grace the cover of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, of course!" He snapped his fingers, and a monitor lit up behind us.

It was me, but it... wasn't. I was standing in a sexy pose, my hands behind my head and looking off to the side, with a yellow bikini on that left little to the imagination. I definitely didn't look like a guy in the picture, that was for sure.

My eyes narrowed as I recalled his choice of words. "Tell me, do I look like a guy in that picture?"

He shook his head, the same leering grin never leaving his face. I continued. "The story goes something like this..."

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*KNOCKKNOCKKNOCK*

"Hrnh? What?"

"Come on Becky, it's dinnertime," Leslie called through the door, sounding impatient.

With a yawn I stood up and stretched, fighting down the twinge of worry that had sprung up inside of me. I wasn't sure what the dream had meant, and I wasn't sure I wanted to find out, either.

(End of Part 4)

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NOTES:

I know, I know, I'm late on posting again... blame it on my lack of inspiration for most of the last two weeks. Last night I got a sudden burst, so here's the result presented in splendid Closetvision for all you readers out there!

As usual, if you comment, more will come! Lay it on me! Dis my work, tell me it sucks, then tell me how to build it back into something bigger and better! Let's do this right!

Melanie E.