So You Think You Can Prance?
(c) 2017
Haylee V

"Yeah, Doing pageants is, like, soooo frickin' hard. I mean, come on, Cyndi. Really? All you have to be is blonde, busty, and a bimbo. Try actually working for a living, and then tell me how tough you have it."

As usual, Mark was being his annoying, chauvanistic self. Cyndi had heard his rhetoric so many times by now that she tuned him out after the first word. She was pissed, having just broken a nail. She had spent all day, and $75 of (what she thought, at least) her hard-earned savings to get a manicure from Madame Zhagreb, the poshest salon in Crowne Royale.

"You think it's so damn easy, huh? Well, why don't you enter one, then? There's one coming up in Nimrod in a month. With training, I think you could be ready for it. Or do you have the guts to go with your mouth?"

Cyndi knew she has gone too far when she issued the challenge, but she was fed up with her older brother's incessant badmouthing. It was time he either put up or shut up.

"I'd love to show all those empty-headed hens you call friends how to really do a pageant, Sis," he snarked,"But you know that Dad's firm is gearing up for a major shutdown at the paper plant, and he's going to need all the help he can get. I must admit, though, a month of doing nothing but sitting on my ass primping does sound inviting."

"I knew you'd back out. As if bookkeeping is so hard. Add this column, subtract that column, carry the two...," Cyndi shot back.

"Think you can handle it, huh? You'd fall on your pretty princess ass in less than a day."

"Wanna bet?"

"You're on! What are the stakes?"

"I'll learn how to keep Dad's books, and you learn the finer arts of femdom. We each have a month. Then, I'll work for Dad and you do the pageant. Person who performs best wins. Anything they want."

"Fine. When I win, you give up pageantry. For good."

"For good?" Cyndi swallowed hard. "That's a steep price to pay, Bro."

"That's my offer. Take it or leave it."

"Whatever. And when I win, you enroll in, and graduate from, Swathmore Academy."

"Swathmore?" Mark squeaked. "I'm not a girl, Sis, and it's not co-ed. How would I enroll, dumbass, not to mention actually attend classes for three years?"

"That's your problem, Bro, now isn't it? You want me to risk giving up my dream, it's going to cost you. Dearly."

"Ouch. But never having to see you primp and pose again will be worth it, I guess. Looks like we have ourselves a bet."

Shaking hands, they sealed the deal. Little did either know just how much their lives would change in the next thirty days...