Looking for a new Andrej

The arrival of Avril

If there's one Andrej Pejic who looks sometimes like girl and sometimes like a boy - then there must be others.

---

I’m a teenage boy coming up to 15 – there’s just one of my problems. Because I’m also impetuous, occasionally rash, always open for a bet. Yet another problem is I’m skinny, 5 foot 10 and barely 115 lbs. Oh, yeah, some more problems – I love mathematics, music, drama – all of which separate me from most of the blokes. I don’t do the typical sports except handball, gym and sometimes rock-scrambling. Not properly sporty, not that academic, not that rich, all these put me towards the far end of most of the ‘popular’ segments of the average school.

My name is Michael Russell and I’m really mildly ordinary. I don’t like it. I think that I’m special in my own special way but I don’t have anything special that would make me shine. I’ve had a girlfriend or two – as much as a fourteen / fifteen year old does. Currently, Sandra is kind of special.

Fortunately – I’m not at an average school. And I’m not the target for anybody. I gently drift with the tide, below the radar, out of sight out of mind. Sometimes I’d like my life to be more exciting – but how would I benefit. What would be the risk.

But I’ve got an elder sister, Alice, and a younger sister, Melanie, who know far too much about me. Alice is not even years older and just eighteen.

Melanie, whose name so neatly alters to Meanie when she is unreasonable, is 10 months younger than me. Yukk, it feels like a sort of babysitting. We’ve done the sums and realized that our parents must have – no – my brain will turn to porridge if I think about them doing …. Y’know.

And one day, well weekend, it all goes berserk and ballistic and bloody awful.

Younger sister, Melanie, sees a picture on the internet of some East European model. And her twisted imagination notices one startling and inconvenient blemish. The girl looks a bit like me and has a two small moles just below her cheek – on the opposite side of the face from the even smaller ones that I have. She giggles – does some nasty with the image and emails it to big-sis, Alice. They’re talking a lot about a party on the Saturday night that they’re both going to. I’m invited but the sort of party they enjoy is not what I enjoy.

I prefer an evening by myself catching up on Dad’s hoard of scifi from the 50s and 60s or on-line playing multi-player role-games with my friends. I know they’re not touch-friends; I’m never going to meet them for real. In fact, they are mostly disguised behind their avatars so I don’t even know if their on-line presence is real or fake. Because I got smashed in my first few games trying to be ultra-macho, currently my avatar is a Messenger-Spy with the ability to disguise herself as an Elf Trader. If this is my avatar – then what others use is just as meaningful.

Alice is apparently ‘sufficiently’ older and after some persuasion is allowed to ‘be in charge’ when both Mum and Dad are out of range for more than a few days. If it gets to be more than a week, then an older aunt or whatever is drafted in to ‘keep an eye on us’.

Whatever. I am not in the loop about what Alice & Mel are thinking about – Mel is swapping ideas with Alice too too much. It will be some time before I find out what is planned.

Nothing happens for a few days then it’s Thursday night and we’re sitting in the kitchen chatting about what’s going to be happening at the weekend. Alice has a school-gang thing on the Friday and wants to get prettied up as soon as she gets back from school. Melanie hasn’t got anything on – so to speak – but does have a small party to go to on Saturday.

We keep chatting until Alice raises the idea that it’s going to be April 1st that day. “Wouldn’t it be cool to do a really good April Fool. Huh?”

We look up on the internet to see what’s been done before. There’s not much that sounds sensible in the short time we have to arrange something. We come across the New Forest Gorse Topiary Competition which sounds dangerously prickly. And the Truffle Trust Donations to ex-millionaires as opposed to the Trussell Trust and their magnificent efforts for the deprived and homeless. Alice giggles and says what sort of charity should there be for the Depraved.

Ideas come and go until Alice says ‘It’d be a good Fool to take Jake to our girl’s party, eh?” As a family we’ve spent far too much time planning and plotting April Fools and spoofs generally. The downstairs toilet has five newspaper stories or internet printouts about what we’ve done.

Some time later, I realise that the whole conversation has been moving steadily to this particular series of suggestions, questions and answers.

I’m stupid. I say “Is that a dare or something?”

We babble on for a while until the party is mentioned again.

“Are you up for a dare then?”

“Um, ….”

“What else are you going to do this evening? Watch Youtube? Wait for your mostly non-existent friends to ring up and suggest something stupid? Play videogames until your eyeballs sweat? This could be a lot of fun, y’know.”

“Er, what do I get out of it, eh?”

“An evening learning about girls – from their side of the fence – so that next time you ask a girl out you can be more sensible than the majority of dumb-boys your age. That’d be really good for you. Even you’ve said you don’t know how to talk to girls. That you stumble and stammer and sit there with a puzzled expression waiting for a brain-cell to ignite. I’ve seen you. We’ve seen you and it’s not pretty. True, you’ve been doing better with Sandy in the last month or so – but even that is advancing slower than a slow snail. You do realise that Sandy talks to us.”

“And …”

“What, you want more?”

“It’s Oliver time, yup.”

“I need to think for a moment. How about - it’s not really proper but you’d get to see me in my bra and panties,” says Alice.

My eyes light up while my mouth says, “Eeew, my sister in her undies.”

“Sorry, sweetie, but you’ve been caught out there – your mouth said one thing while your eyes went all ‘golly wow yes please’.”

“Oh.” Not much more to say. “Oh dear. Er, how do I get out of this, sis?”

“I’m not sure you can, middle-sis.”

“Middle-sis?”

“If you’re going to go to this party then you’re going as a girl, in our clothes and all that. And it’s two to one and you’re in the middle of Big-sis and Junior-sis so ……. You’re middle-sis. Unless you’ve got an alternative that we like better.”

“You like better. Don’t I get a say in this, sis.”

“Oooooh, of course you do. If we do anything silly then you can so drop us in the pooh. You’ve got to be willing, and wanting to pretend your best and ….”

“And I’m still not sure what I get out of this deal?”

“You want more than being dressed all pretty, fooling all my schoolmates and, er, getting a close-up of a real pair of breasts?”

“You’re getting more persuasive minute by minute.”

Melanie chirps up, “How about we do a test-run. If we dress you up a bit and you feel more confident about the whole idea - would you take it on as a dare.”

Oh golly – the ‘Dare’ word. I’m so stupid as my skull contents go into no-brain mode.

“Well, sort of, maybe ….”

Before my brain has begun to react at zero miles per hour, I’ve been dragged upstairs to have another quick shower. I’m handed some of Alice’s shampoo and bodywash and told that’ll make me smell faintly more acceptable. No way are their clothes going to be infected with boy-smell, she smirks. As I’m about to finish, Alice opens the door and says, “It’s a bit over the top, but if you’re wearing anything of mine I’m going to have to insist on you shaving under your arms and trimming your pant-line if necessary. You’re not going to have to shave your legs or anywhere else. Once you start doing that, you really have to keep doing it every few weeks and that would be silly. But under the arms – or else. Okay. Then use some lotion very carefully. If you cut yourself, it might sting. Then pat yourself dry rather than a boy-type scrub with the towel.

I do as I’m told and, golly, is the effect different. My skins feels odd yet somehow lush with the slick of oil. My underarms feel very naked even though only a few wisps came off. Similarly down below, where I had trimmed just a little at the edges of where I thought was too fluffy.

Not much later, when I get to my bedroom, there’s some clothes on the bed. I see panties, bra and other slinky, shiny, sleek, sexy (to my eyes) underwear – and what I’m told later is a sundress.

Some of the clothes aren’t too difficult to get on – but the bra. How do girls do it. I’ve seen them on youtube and so on. They twist, bend and flip and suddenly they’re all arranged and, er, pretty. I can’t do the round the back thing. After a minute or so, I change how I’m trying to do it and stop and think. Technically a bra is a type of knot to be arranged around a cylinder with three major protrusions (neck, 2 arms). And I enjoy mathematics. How about …. At the front, twist to the back THEN put my arms though the straps. It feels really weird and twisty as my skin gets pulled this way and that. But the bra is on – even though there’s an ugly droopy look to the non-existent cups.

I call out for some help as I’m not sure if there’s a proper sequence to what goes where. “Big-sis, erm, …”

Almost before I’ve spoken Alice is in the room and saying, “Oh that looks so pretty. Your legs are so good even without shaving them and, well, you actually already look very sisterish.”

“I really don’t know if this is a good idea. Y’know.”

“Do you want a little more incentive?”

And before I can blink she’s standing in front of me in just her undies. My eyes have barely stopped spinning.

“Don’t be silly, bro. If you’re ‘doing girl stuff’ then you need to know that we often change clothes with other girls in the room. It’s not as if I’m going to take either of these off. There are limits. And I did promise to let you see me in my undies as an encouragement to get you to agree. Actually, I wasn’t sure I was going to do this. I was planning to just show you a phone-pic of me – but you’re my bro, I know I’m safe.” She giggled and patted me on the shoulder.

“I don’t know exactly how far you’ve got with girls – but you need to not be silly about anything girlish that happens to you.”

“So, this is just giving me a bit of extra education in Girly-101?”

“Yes, that’s as good a way of saying it as any other.”

“You have to carry this off calmly and with confidence. You’ll be dressed up and I think, with good styling and makeup, you will be rather attractive. And don’t forget this all started when Mel saw those pictures of Andrej Pejic looking so half-and-half. I think you’ll be very persuasive. But we need you to not be thinking of sex all the time. You’re a boy so you probably can’t help it.”

“Yeah, I’m a boy and you want to put me in a dress?!” I could hear the question-mark as well as the exclamation mark in my voice.

“Could be. But we want you to enjoy the evening. So, you’ve got dressed, now to show you that we can conceal any evidence of boy so thoroughly that even you’ll be willing to fancy the girl in the mirror. Let’s get to it. Stand up, turn to the left, forward three paces, turn, sidestep and sit down, good d…. girl.”

“Woof.” Which was the correct response when anyone tried the ‘good doggie’ routine.

“Stay.”

“Grrrrrrfff.”

“Stay, or no treats.”

“Nyyyyyeeer”

“Don’t whine, don’t whimper, don’t use puppy eyes. I am immune. Most girls are immune from puppy eyes unless they love the puppy.”

“Grmphhh. Okay”

Some minutes later, I was standing again while my first dress swirled around my legs. The sensation was new and almost disturbingly interesting. The feel of the lined skirt against my, MY, panties was very nice, exciting.

Some socks had been rolled up and stuffed into my bra – my first bra. Urk – what a strange sentence for a boy to write. So now, the view downwards was equally disturbing. Instead of being able to see my feet there was a strange double curve blocking my view – I glanced at Alice who noticed my new interests.

“They’re called tits, dear brother. Boobies, breasts, puppies, boy-attraction-units, man-magnets, and god only knows the hundred horrible words that boys use for them. If yours’ were real, they’d have grown on you so to speak – but these socky-bumps will have to do until later.”

?Later?

“Erm, sis, how are we going to do this well enough that it’s an April Fool and I don’t get hammered either at the party or at school?”

“Hush, questions later, I’m busy.”

And after another half hour or so of fiddling, pushing, pulling and all sorts of make-upery stuff, the person in the mirror was NOT a boy. It wasn’t that fantasy-figure of the second most beautiful girl in the world. Don’t be arrogant. I would have scored a couple of millihelens. [If Helen of Troy had the Face that launched a Thousand Ships then Asimov’s millihelen can launch one. Wikipedia now lists intervals from the attohelen to the terahelen.] But I was not the ‘prettiest girl around’ like happens in some of the fantasy stories. I wasn’t going to suddenly be a better, cleverer, more attractive girl than any of the real girls I knew – life is not like that. Only fantasy stories where the author lets their imagination get a little out of control have that sort of thing happen to the hero-ine.

“Wow. That is impressive, sis. If I wasn’t looking into that self-same mirror, there’d be no way I’d accept that I could look this good. I’m actually pretty neat aren’t I?”

“So, it’s a deal then. You’ll take the bet and come to the party and everything.”

“Yes – but what does ‘and everything’ mean.”

“In order to do your best at the party, then you’ll have to be confident and comfortable. To do that, I strongly suggest that we have at least some practice and rehearsal beforehand. There’s not much we can do more tonight except give you a nightie to wear. There’s even less tomorrow night because I’m going out and you two have the whole weekend’s homework to do in one night.”

“Why all on Friday.”

“Because Saturday is booked out and we’ve already got things planned to do on Sunday.”

“Oh.”

“So it’s settled then. You’ll do it.”

“Okay.”

Yeah – that’s how dim I can be. A set-up, I would never have guessed. Well, not until some a day and a half later during Saturday morning.

The night before, we’d all been delayed in various ways at school and by the time I got home, Alice was on her way out for the evening and after a snack the two of us sat around doing stuff, sometimes with each other (ie homework) and after that each in our room.

The same as the previous night, Alice had left a nightie on my bed. Last night, I had been persuaded to wear it and the feel of it was incredibly different from my usual style, which was to be naked. The material, satin I learnt later, slid around my body and during the night wrapped itself round my legs in a most unsatisfactory tangle. Eventually, I got up, shook myself to get it back into position and then climbed into bed and lay more carefully.

As I lay in bed in the morning, still wearing my nightie, I thought about what and how was going on. What were our parents doing not being there to look after us – overworked, underpaid, like so many. Dad is an architect working on quite major projects anywhere within Britain and sometimes France (he speaks excellent French). Mum is a Civil Servant doctor-troubleshooter-type who also gets sent away for days or weeks at a time. They both try to be at home through the holidays but believe that the combination of school and homework keeps us busy enough for most of a term. Mum has said recently that she's being encouraged to work less hard.

Dad was away for a fortnight and Mum had been called away on Tuesday to help out at a conference in Scotland where somebody had fallen sick – and she’d be back during Monday. At a few days over eighteen, Alice was in charge.

My mum is a doctor – therefore in the same way that cobbler’s children have worn out shoes – she doesn’t really notice her own children needing medical attention. Most of our family medical cabinet is ibuprofen for kids, cough medicine for kids and sticky plasters. That’s how it is.

I’ve been getting more and more worried about ……. Puberty. My balls have dropped – but they’re tiny. I’ve spent far too much time looking on the internet for reasons, options, suggestions and advice. Almost all of them say ‘wait for it – it will happen’. Unfortunately a few of them say ‘Perhaps there may be a problem – talk your parents and get to a doctor’.

But as I just said, getting her to take me to a real doctor is verging on the edge of really unlikely.

But the parental-units also expect us to do ‘projects’ every now and again to keep us out of trouble. Sometimes these are really dull, sometimes they’re fascinating. We did one on Truth, Near-Truth and Lies based on newspaper reports of football hooligans at the European Cup. We did one on the Causes of the First World War where we had to get translations of German newspapers – wow. Like the Bible says ‘What is truth?’ Last year, we had to look at Tolerance – what people say versus what they do. This year’s summer project hadn’t been decided.

The biggest effect of the projects was to encourage us to look at things in a much more grown-up way than we expected. I wouldn’t say any of us was stupid – but we were unknowledgeable or at least short of information. Working at these projects got us talking as a team – and judging by our friends’ comments what we said actually made us sound more grown up too. Each of us could remember quite a number of occasions where we were thanked for our advice.

And the other advantage was that each of us was becoming more aware of the other gender’s differences. And the girls got thanked for the advice I passed back, and I was thanked by the boys who listened to me. As a ‘semi-weirdo’ on the edges of social acceptability at school, there weren’t that many who listened to me – but enough. Each time it happened, I felt good. And each time I got a message from one of the girls that they knew it had been me who gave their idiot-boyfriends some guidance – that was good too.

So – it looked to me like this was going to be an opportunity to do some ‘tolerance-testing’. I felt fairly sure, well slightly sure, that S&S hadn’t planned it this way. But …. Should I go as the brother dressed up – which would be very up front and would commit me to the very strong likelihood of a distorted reputation and a probably distorted face next week at school. OR should I be ‘the cousin from pout of town’ – which might backfire with equally tragic results. After all, April Fools were supposed to be funny – weren’t they. How could I join in and ensure that the result was sufficiently funny and clever and not-future-damaging?

After breakfast, I set all my brain cells to work while Alice helped me into my second dress. Putting on the relevant underwear wasn’t quite so strange – it was now the second time and I was slightly used to the feelings – and the reactions. To my considerable surprise, on neither occasion had I got an enormous stiffy like I would’ve expected. A stiffy – yes – because there were a lot of new sensations and many ideas which involved female body parts and all that. Lots of all that actually. But not a stiffy that prevented me thinking – or required ‘assisted removal’.

But the dress was a startling new series of sensations. It was a jersey style which clung to my body yet had little weights sewn into the hem to exaggerate the sway and flow around my knees. It felt amazing.

“Right, that’s your dress for this evening. I needed to check that it would look suitably, er, suitable.”

“So tell me more about tonight.”

“I have a cunning plan, my lord.”

“Oh, no. Not one of those. In how many ways is this going to go wrong.”

“N, n, no. It is all calculated to the last millimetre. Your young lady Sandra realised what we were doing when Junior and I were talking in the canteen. She is going to come out as a lesbian and smooch you until your eyes and ears explode – then when she’s accused of being a lezzy, she’s going to explain that this is a quality April Fool because you have been willing to dress up so that SHE can do the Fool on everyone. That puts you in the clear and – bob’s your auntie.”

“S ..S ..S ..Sandra knows?”

“Yep. It was mostly her idea. I say mostly, because girly I can tell you, the idea made her moist as well. She told me to tell you that. She said if anything would give you that extra incentive then that was going to be pretty much the master-stroke. Well, mistress-stroke perhaps.” Another grinning smirky thing.
My mind and lower-brain got very interested at the idea of Sandy getting wet thinking about spending the evening with me, and especially with the smooching. I took a deep breath.

“So what – exactly – will be my role at this party? To be the pretend-lesbian partner of a pretend-lesbian and to be unmasked in front of all my friends, colleagues, schoolmates and several enemies in one swell foop.

"Aaaaaarrrrggghhh. I just don’t believe it.”

“Relax, sis. You’ll be just fine.”

"Don’t you mean I’ll be only just fine even if it all works perfectly?”

“Don’t you trusssst me, dearie,” she put on a truly horrid witch’s cackle (rehearsed thoroughly at last year’s school play).

“Oh, most wondrous lady, foul of feature and grim of visage, tell me not my fortune, brew me no potions, all I ask is that you protect me merely from the foulness of man.” I knew the lines too from constant rehearsal.

“Protect YOU from MEN. When you flaunt your body in such a lewd manner, shaking your hips and breasts to allure the stupid male, exciting them with the scent that wafts from you.”

“Nay, I am not such a girl as that. I am pure maiden. Free from fault or desire to entice or entrap. I am dainty, gentle, timorous and need some simple made of herbs and wishes to lessen their ardour. Can you help me, I beg.”

“Neither girl, nor woman, nor aged hag should beg from me. I can do much. But thee must make some suitable offering to me and my coven. What would ye offer, trusting damsel. It must be of worth to thee and clearly of worth to me else I consider thy plaint.”

“Cor, enough of that. I can’t think what to say next. Anyway – it’s been your idea so far. You and sis – and now Sandra too. Let’s take a break.”

“Okeydoke. But it’s still a dare, still a bet, Bet-boy. Yeah.”

“I thiiiink so – but you keep changing the rules – or at least the goalposts. I’m not sure what’s going on. Can I back out still.”
“It’ll be hard to back out with these photographs wot I’ve got in my little pink phonio!” came a voice from the doorway.

Junior-Sis !!!

“Noooo. What have you got. Come on, it’s your idea. You can’t make me do something and then make threats. That’s just so not fair.”

“Who said anything about threats, sweetie. And you look very swish in that dress. Talk about curves – well, since you’re so skinny they’re not so much curves as slight bends from a straight line. Maybe they’re sort of kinks , which would make this whole plan definitely even more kinky than before.” [Did I mention that the whole family does this thing with in-jokes, puns, catchphrases and so on. Some other people HATE it.]

“Now, let’s slip that dress off and you can wear a simple blouse and skirt while we go out and get you some real-world practice.”

Not many minutes later, I was wearing an outfit that Alice and Melanie approved of.

There’s a pause while we had a cup of tea [a British solution to many complicated issues].

“Okay,” says Alice. “We’ve got about 10 hours until we leave for the party. You need to be well comfortable with wearing a dress, walking in, say, 2 inch heels and feeling sexy enough and girly enough to be noticed in a good way by the people at the party. What’cher fink, little-sis.”

“I’d suggest a drive to the mall, a promenade to the coffee-shop, and the purchase of quality stockings, a brief pause at the salon which I have conveniently booked for after lunch. You’re getting at least a massage, a manicure and a trim. Then we’ll work to get a bit more confidence.”

“Sounds good to me,” said Top-sister.

“Don’t I get to say anything?”

Chorus “Nope.”

So it turns out that we do as suggested. And some of their planning becomes true. I do get more comfortable as the day progresses. Of course, I don’t wear the jersey dress into town – it’s not a daytime costume. Instead I’m wearing a thick cotton shirt, well blouse, a thin fleece thing, a skirt and leggings as well as relevant underwear. It’s all quite comfortable and very different.

The bra straps pull across my back and chest. The panties slide across the skirt or vice versa. The downward view continues to be a surprise. The clip-on earrings actually stop being a nuisance once my ears go numb, but the little tinkle as the rings flick together is a constant reminder.

We’ve been in the mall for a while, looking at shops, feeling fabrics, checking the look of so many clothes. I know I’m being given an insight into Girl-101 which is exactly what S&S are aiming at.

And I do begin to relax. And I do begin to assimilate my Girl-101 lessons. At one moment, I find that I’m holding a dress up to myself and checking the effect in the mirror. I sway from side to side to see how the fabric moves. A voice in my ear whispers “Nice choice, d’you want to try it on.”

The voice is neither Alice nor Melanie. It’s an assistant. I flush, blush, stammer and try to say ‘no’.

I am no match for a professional saleswoman – even if she is at least six inches shorter than me with an excellent set of curves and a displayed cleavage (from my vertical view) that is a danger to shipping, builders and men of most descriptions. And she’s pretty too with curled blonde hair and wide-open blue eyes. I am putty in her hands. I find I am escorted into the changing rooms, placed in a cubicle and have become the subject of intense questioning from Josie.

“Does it fit? Is it too long, too short, too tight? Do you need a different bra? Do you need an extra opinion? …….” It’s like being the target of a machine gun.

Some minutes later my giggling, smirking twosome arrive to ‘assist’. “That does look good. I’ll buy it for you, just in case.” says Alice.

[This is a big family in-ioke. Last year, I got some fake ID in the name of Justin Case. Once my parents got to hear about it due to my dropping my wallet at Mum’s feet, they set up a bank account in that name and now I’ve got credit cards and all to go with it. They bought the web-site and put some of their business into a company now called Justin Case Projects Ltd. Actually all of us have credit cards to the business account. We had a long family planning session, so to speak, when the whole concept of long-term tax planning and estate planning was explained to us. Dad said, we try to teach you grown-up things before you get to be adults so that you may, I repeat MAY, not make quite as many mistakes as we did and as your mates will likely do. It is nice being treated as if you have some commonsense. But all three of us were teenagers so mistakes were going to happen.]

But I was feeling enormously more relaxed after being in public almost all day with my sisters – in a dress, wearing a bra and panties, being a pretend-girl IN PUBLIC ….. I should have been screaming or at least whimpering and panicking. But I’d got past that. I still didn’t feel good about doing the same thing in front of people who already knew me – but it would be darker and noisier.

As we leave the shop, Melanie congratulates me for my purchase. “We’ve spent most of the day doing this and I’m so proud of you. Picking that dress up and checking it out like you did, it was just so right, so proper-girl for you to do that. And it suits you so well. You’ve got a good eye.”

Without realizing the amount of indoctrination that was being poured into my all-too-receptive ear, I enjoyed being told this.

Next I was escorted into the salon. You’ve read the stories. It was pretty good. I’d never had a massage. I’d never had anybody pay strict and controlled attention to my hands or my feet for half an hour each – and they did look pretty with nail polish. And my ordinary hair, albeit quite long due to barber-shop inertia, was trimmed and mildly primped into a delicate arrangement that no boy would ever have dared have.

I had little option but to enjoy this new clutch of sensations. I did feel quite different. The heels, even at only an inch and a half pulled my leg muscles in a new way. I could feel myself sway even without the benefit of hips, waist or genuine boobage. I did now have a pair of silicon ‘pushups’ to give me the faintest of shapes rather than the sockage of Thursday.

The concentrated dose of ultra-girliness injected into me at the salon did make me feel good.

A lot of things happened in the two hours that I’d never had done to me before. And being looked after is great. Pampering is now, for me, understood as a great pleasure. And I actually said as we left, “I think blokes miss out on a lot by not doing any of that sort of thing. I mean, I guess that some men do some of it, like massage maybe, but most men would run a mile. It’s kind of nice having time spent on looking good.”

Alice smiled, “Looks like you’ve actually learnt some good lessons already today.”

Back at the house, there were two hours before H-hour. “Remind me what’s going to happen.”

I was sitting at Alice’s vanity while she painted and decorated my mildly willing, completely manipulated brain-body system.

“Be nice. I won’t take long. All I’m actually doing is turning you from a strangely pretty girl to an exotic eyecatcher suitable for Sandy to cosy up to.”

“Is Sandy, er, flexible.”

“Nope. But because she plays some sport and is a bit chunky, she’s been given this reputation. At the party she can give you immense kudos as a jokemeister willing to go that bit extra and at the same time remove all the ugly slurs that They have been spreading about her. Sort of a win-win, really.”

“Riiight, I think I get the situation. But I always get twitchy when you have ‘a cunning plan’. Not unreasonable really.”

“What are you complaining about.”

“You mean you’re trying to persuade me they don’t go wrong – well not always.”

“Your plans might; Melanie’s plans do; my plans sometimes; but this is Sandy’s plan –so it’ll be alright on the night.”

“That’s a television program about everything going WRONG.”

“So – this isn’t television – this is real.”

“Yeah – tell me that when everyone has their phones out for youtube clips.”

“It’ll be alright. Trusssst me, my pretty one.” (Cackle!)

Some minutes later. I was ‘ready’. Well I was never going to be ready but Alice and Melanie decided that I was ‘ready enough’.

We set off the short distance to the party. All of a kilometre or so, but Alice wasn’t going to risk drinking and driving. I definitely wasn’t – and I wasn’t qualified either and nor was Melanie. It was a cool but not cold evening and it was exciting to hear the click click of our heels as we stepped out arm in arm.

It felt quite powerful to be strutting as a determined threesome of stylish girls. Woe betide any mere mortal who dared get in our path as we trampled the dust beneath our feet.

Somehow, I didn’t feel scared. But I didn’t really feel confident. These were people I knew – what the heck would happen if it all went wrong. I’d be THE target for every bully, every person in the school – and then all their friends and then everyone. I shuddered.

“What’s up, sis.”

“I’m really not sure about this.”

“Don’t be silly. It’s all set. In a little while, there’ll be some dancing. Sandy is going to pick you out and dance with you. You’ll enjoy it, she’ll enjoy it. Then the evening will progress until we start the rumour about Sandy being a lesbian and she’ll announce that it’s an April Fool. Oh, by the way, we’ve had a chat with Sandy, and you’re not our sister of course, you’re our friend over from France called April. If you want the French version, you’re Avril Nigaud. But you’ve been living in Corchester almost since you were born. [Corchester is about thirty miles away. Avril is 'April' and Nigaud is French for ‘fool’.]

“Ah, oui, you err ma cousan,”

“Oh, wow, Avril, that sounds so good. Keep that going and it’ll be easy.”

It was a lot easier to keep control since I was too young to drink. I was actually one of the youngest there apart from Sandy and the half-dozen classmates who had been invited. And I looked some years older. And the exotic accent made me sound more sophisticated too (I won’t quote Tom Lehrer).

It was about an hour before Sandy got to me. She came over and spoke dreadful French at me and suggested that we join the various couples on the dance floor. Even if it wasn’t what a normal teenager would have called ‘dancing’. Wobbling and jiggling in time to the music or, more often, some dire and off-beat internal rhythm.

Sandy did too much touching and too much eye-contact, on purpose I knew.

We went off to what might have been called a buffet at a proper party – pizza slices mostly and takeaway nibbles, with lots of fruit for the non-fat girls. Sandy upped the stakes for people to notice us by occasionally feeding me with something special.

The party was due to slow down by midnight, a bit early I thought but some of the boys belonged to a team that was playing a key match in the morning. I was quite glad because it was an effort to keep the French accent going especially when someone pinched my bum while we were dancing.

It was about half past eleven that I noticed some of the looks being sent our way. I nudged Sandy. “The rumour has obviously started!”

“Some time ago you French ninny. It should blow in just a few minutes. We can’t wait until the boys have already started leaving. We want them sober enough to join in the joke.”

“Oh. Have I been missing something.”

“No, sweetie, It’s all under control.”

“Oh, I didn’t know.”

“Well if you had known then you wouldn’t react right would you. It’s all sorted.”

Not many minutes later, Alice’s friend Janet came towards us. We had found a table to sit at, and we were clearly talking as if we were a couple intent on each other.

“So, little girl, you’re coming out of the closet at last, eh? You won’t be able to deny that you are the lezzy we’ve always suspected. And this is your little French bit, is it? Or is it bitch, eh? I’ll say you’re a quick worker – or do I mean a lick worker. I’ve got your number.”

“Well, well, well. If it isn’t the Queen Bee – by which I mean the Queen as in whatever you think it means and B as in actual B … for whatever you want THAT to mean.”

“Ooh, getting defensive now are we. Don’t like being pointed out to everyone for what you are.”

“Janet. I think you should know that you have not been using the few little grey cells that you believe are filling the space between your ears. Some of your statements are right but your conclusions are very wrong. You do realize you are talking about my new friend Avril Nigaud. But I’m confident that you do not know what Nigaud means in French.”

“So what.”

“Daaarling. Nigaud means ‘fool’ and you have been Avril Fool-ed. This is my lovely boyfriend.”

It’s getting late – you can see the cogs slowly going round. By this time, strangely, a small crowd has gathered at Janet’s raised voice and quite loud accusations.

“What d’you mean – boyfriend – that’s a girl.”

“Yep – boyfriend – and most definitely not a girl. This is my boy and we have won our bet.” And she called over to Alice, “I’ve won the bet, Alice.”

“Boy? Bet?”

“Duuur. Yep, we had a bet that nobody would realize that Avril was just too fake to be real. She’s not a girl. This is Michael Russell, and he’s mine. And he’s helped me win my bet. Despite what you all think, he’s mine and I’m not and never have been a lesbian. So suck it up, sweetie, shut it up, sweetie and we’re going home to learn basic anatomy.”

There was quite a hubbub as we stood up.

“But I really fancied her.” “That’s a boy, no way.” “I pinched his bum, her bum, whatever sort of bum that’s a sleek piece.” “I’ve come all over weird, don’t tell me I’m queer. Weird is enough.” “But she’s so gorgeous.” “It’s not fair – that’s a boy.” “Wow.”

Then gradually, “Nice one, Sandy.” “You’ve got style, Avril.” “You’re a player, Mike.” And variations on them. That was when I began to believe that our efforts had worked. Sandy was not going to be seen as a lesbian and I was a player.

Sandy whispered to me. “Now you have to become as blokey as you can. Lean back, spread your legs in relaxed-man style. Sat something like ‘Wow, that was hard work. I’m glad I’m not a girl having to do all this every day for real.”

Brain overload. Reboot, recalculate. Set all sensors to ‘stunned’. “Yeah, right. Good idea.”

I did as I was told. I leant back on the sofa and spread my legs. I did know that my dress reached just below my knees. I’m not a slut or a prude – just average common sense.

And Janet screeched ‘don’t show the whole world your panties ….. and suddenly stopped. “You bums. You had me good and proper. Nice one. But wait till next year. I’ll get you back.” And she leapt at the two of us and hugged us big-time.

There was a chorus of (mostly) stunned approval. Those who really disapproved kept quiet as they could see that the crowd was in our favour.

I did put my legs back together, sat up straight and behaved as I should.

Janet said “You’re a bad boy, girl, whatever.”

“I’m not a bad girl. I washed me ‘ands and feet before I came I did.” [Audrey Hepburn, Eliza Dolittle, My Fair Lady]

Sandy jumped a few lines …. “By Jove, she’s got it. I think she’s got it.”

We let the reaction continue for a while – then the boys started to leave. Several congratulated us as they went. It was very satisfactory that there were more comments about how pretty I looked, how pleased they were that Sandy wasn’t a lesbian, how entertained they were with such an excellent ploy.

Two of the drama crowd, Liz and Tony, both said that i would have to contribute more now that they knew how well I could hold a role in public. We all knew that in public was so different from a stage performance.

“Come on Michael – time to go. I promised you it was a sucker bet – and I’m going to hold you and me to that promise. Let’s go – Sucker.”

Not long after we set off home. The three of us, plus Sandy and Janet. The synchronised drumbeat of our heels was awesome. We felt great.

The summarising and de-brief, so to speak, went on till late. After all, none of us was playing football. There was a mumble of ‘do we get up in time to go and watch’ followed by ‘let’s try but not make promises.”

And for the dirty-minded – no we didn’t don anything grubby. We didn’t practise any basic biology. We didn’t do any ‘sucking’ of anything except a bit of lip and some tongue-dancing. And yes, I did get to hold another pair of breasts, well one actually, from the side. But it felt so different from when Alice made me do it. Sandy’s breast was smaller, softer. I could feel her heartbeat flutter against my fingers. I remembered Alice’s words about boys always being too rough so kept my fingers gentle.

Sandy murmured, “That’s nice. You do that so nicely. Stroke my little babies, if you want.” She snuggled closer.

Alice was watching and winked at me. She knew what my fingers were fondling fondly. And she knew we were good for each other. We might only be fifteen and oh so certainly and all too likely life would break us apart – but we were each our own first loves and that’s a sort of virginity.

Alice smiled and I heard her quiet whisper, “That’s a lot of firsts happening for you, yes no, bro?”

And I smiled and curled Sandy closer to me. Then I untangled myself from her almost sleeping body. I kissed her cheek and felt her smile wrinkle against my lips I arranged blankets over her and went upstairs.

Beds were inhabited, Couches and so on arranged for the two extras. Sleep came at last. This time, I didn’t wear a nightie.

As I fell asleep, Alice came in and sat on my bed. “That was well done with Sandy. She may come across as tough but tonight was a big risk for her. You did well. I’m proud of you. And you’ve still got a score with us as soon as you’ve decided what it’s going to be. Like the boys said, you’re a player now and we need to keep you on the topside at school. Not at the top, but on the top of middle-of-the-road. Sleep well, bro. And I’ll say goodbye to middle-sis too.” And she kissed my cheek. I wondered if she felt my smile in the same way as I had with Sandy.