Placekicker
A Short Story
By Maryanne Peters

I made the mistake of misjudging the female sex. Most men have made that mistake, at least once in their lives, but I think not many have seen it change their lives like it did mine.

Mandy Jones was as close to a girl jock as you can get. As a boy jock I should know. She ran track, threw the javelin, she captained the softball team and was the leading shooter on the soccer team. In that game her particular skill was the long bending kick. So why would I challenge her?

To say I was a jock may be going a bit too far. It was mainly because sport was the only thing I was any good at. I was not smart enough for most subjects, especially the core subjects. I was fit and I liked the idea of having a good physique, even if I was a little on the small side. But I was on the premier high school football team, as the placekicker.

Now we placekickers get put on for the kicks, and then we get taken off. Some might say we really don’t play in the game, but we have to have the skills to handle ourselves if there is a charge down, or a miss and the ball is returned. It did not happen to me because I rarely missed, and if I did the ball went dead. Looking back on it I am happy for it. I love the game, but I would rather avoid being sacked.

So, Mandy was going on about me not being a real player in front of some of her friends and mine. She said: “If I wanted to, I could be selected for your position.”

I said (something like)” “No way. If you could got selected I would need to take your place in the cheerleaders.”

Everyone laughed except her. She just spat on her hand and thrust it at me. She said: “Deal done.”

I could not pull out of it. There were maybe 6 girls there and at least 4 of my team-mates. I saw some of them reaching into their pockets to take up bets. Two or three of the girls were backing Mandy to replace me as placekicker. That should have told me something.

The discussion as to what I had actually agreed to was debated between my team members and the two girls from the cheerleading team. If I lost it meant that I would need to qualify for the team as a girl, on looks as well as talent. I can say now that it was taken out of my hands, but basically that was what I was thinking. Mandy getting selected to play high school football was about that unlikely as me getting on a team of pretty-girls dancers and pom-pom shakers. But If she could achieve the impossible I would not be released unless I matched her.

So, Mandy went to see the coach and asked for a trial. He thought it was a great joke but he agreed to give her a trial after I intervened.

Coach asked me with a smile: “You understand Hansen, if she is as good as she says she is she will take your position. I don’t need two specialist placekickers.”

“Coach,” I said, “If you give her the spot, I’m going to be too busy to be on the team anyway.” I was laughing then too. It still seemed so unlikely.

So, Mandy got the pads and helmet on and the coach says run out and take some shots set up for her. Every ball flies over. He shifts her around, shifts her back, has her kick from both sides. Then Mandy who has been kicking with her right foot, starts doing the same with her left foot. Oh no.

Coach says: “Come back tomorrow for a full practice, and we’ll see if you can handle it.” As he walks past me with a slightly worried look on my face, he winks.

Patsy Hallam, the captain of the cheerleader squad says: “Don’t cut your hair, Pretty Boy, you might need it.”

The next day everybody knows, but I am still calm. I know what I had to go through for selection. It is not just kicking.

So, at practice he starts with a few kicks with opposition charging her. She is quick to the ball and light on her feet, but it is clear that the Coach is setting her up for a late tackle. Of course I do not want her to win, but I not to get crushed either. As long as she can avoid the chasers, she is OK.

So then Coach calls a miss and directs the receiver to run it back. It clearly went over but he is testing her, so it is clear that the runner is charging her. What does she do? She runs at him. He is a big guy but she tackles him at the bootlaces and he comes down with a crash, and spills the ball. Possession back to us. Coach claps slowly. This is looking bad for me.

“Tyrone,” he calls out to the runner. “Ball retention, asshole. Tackled by a girl I can live with, but not losing the ball.”

So, Coach whispers to the ball placer, and the next play this guy fumbles at the tee and then picks up and passes to Mandy. What is she going to do? The practice opposition is bearing down on her, so she runs back. She calls “Receiver”, like she has played this game all her life. But nobody calls back, so she cannot pass - she runs. Please God she does not score a touchdown! She fell short. Brought down close to the line, and three guys on top of her. I can almost hear bones breaking.

Coach walks over, and as the last guy gets off her he looks at her. She pulls herself up slowly. I feel grateful for her that nothing is broken, but she is bruised. She says: “What’s next, Coach.”

“Have you played this game before?” asks the Coach.

“My father was a college player and I have two brothers looking at contracts. So, yeah, some backyard stuff.”

Coach says to her: “You start Saturday.” Then he turns to me but talks to her: “And you better loan this guy a dress for tomorrow.”

And that is how it happened. It is all over the school. Everybody but nobody said the same thing: “A deal is a deal.” And some say: “That serves you right for under-estimating a girl.” So, my punishment is to be a girl.

Of course, I did not tell my parents. They found out later. For the rest of the week I turned up to school in my regular clothes and then I got changed in the visitor unisex toilet, into girl clothes.

Patsy as captain of the cheerleading team said that she would take me in hand. She said: “If you want release from this you have to get on the cheerleading team. Until you do, everyone at school is going to expect you to turn up to classes in a dress. So, the choice is yours – are you going to win selection this year, and handle a few months, or next year and add a full 12 months onto your life in skirts?”

So, I said: “Help me Patsy. I will do whatever I have to.”

“I will get the girls together on the weekend and we will give you a makeover,” she says. “Appearance is important for selection. Athletic ability we guess you have, but we need to assess your ability to dance and to work in unison. We can do it, but only if you commit.”

“I will. I do.” I am confused and so upset with myself.

The selection panel will be the head cheer coach and the principal who both know I am a boy, and a very experienced coach from out of town, who will not know. Patsy says we should not tell her. I will need to pass as a girl totally in the interview and the set drills.

That meant living the character. That meant becoming a girl. I would need to tell my parents.

My father was mad enough that I had been dropped from the team, let alone that I would be in drag for weeks trying to put things right. My mother said that it would be a lesson in the hazards of pride and arrogance, and that it might even be fun. In fact, she offered to help.

Daisy Metcalfe ran a salon in town and she was a “Cheer Mother.” She had three daughters who had all been through the school and been cheerleaders, but the youngest had left a couple of years ago. She now worked in the salon with her mother. I discovered that it was still the unofficial clubrooms of the cheerleading team. It became my second home for the next few weeks.

I was steered in and sat down.

Daisy said: “With colouring like that, she needs to go blonde. We need extensions. We have enough hair to anchor those and pull back into an extended pony tail. This is going to work.”

Patsy was right beside me throughout the process, telling me how things were going to play: “The girls will get together some clothes for you to be able to get into character for the next few weeks. We have training 3 nights a week, but some of us train every night, on the field or in the gym. If you want to get in the squad, you should too.”

“I’ll do it,” I said. “Whatever I need to do.”

So, at the end of a few hours I had long blonde hair that looked natural. Then Daisy and her daughter went to work on my face. They shaped my eyebrows, brushed colouring on my nose and cheeks, and applied eye makeup and lipstick. Then they stood back to let me look at myself in the mirror.

And then the strangest thing happened. I fell in love with the new me.

This is hard to explain, but I am going to try. It was as if I now had total control over the prettiest girl in school. She could smile at me – wink maybe. Set my heart aflutter I think is the phrase. I never knew what that meant until that moment.

Somehow to have that beautiful creature clunk about like a man dressed as a woman was just wrong. The first thing I did was put my hand under my chin. Then I turned my head and flicked my hair over my shoulder, just as I had seen pretty girls do hundreds of times. I knew how to look good. I looked up at Daisy and Patsy and smiled, tilting my head a little.

Patsy looked gobsmacked. All she could say was: “Wow.”

It was about as unlikely as a girl kicking every goal at a football trial, but that is how it happened.

“That has to be my best work ever,” said Daisy. She rushed off to get take a photo. She said: “I wish I had taken a ‘before’ shot. Nobody will believe this.”

“You need the body to match,” said Patsy. You need to shave down. We need to pad your bra. You are going to be a huge hit.” She was fizzing with excitement.

“Do you think I’m pretty?” I asked, playfully. It was a bad attempt at girl talk.

“And we need to do something about the voice.”

“I spent the rest of the evening and the whole night at Patsy’s with some other girls on a ‘team sleepover’. The truth is that it was all hard work. Not only did I have to go through the depilation and body moisturizing, but I went through crash courses on hair and makeup, clothes and shoes, and I started the first of my exercises in ‘developing a feminine voice’.

Also at Patsy’s house I started on what she called ‘women’s multi-vitamins for skin and hair’, pills that I have been taking daily ever since.

I went to school with the girls the following day as ‘Willow, the new girl’. At first nobody knew that it was me. I totally looked so much like a chick. I even walked like one. But one of the girls must have said something, and after lunch the whispers started, that it was me in the dress.

Tom Gadd, one of my old team mates came up to me towards the end of the day and flat out asked me: “Is that you Billy?”

I was toying with what I might say for the whole day, but I found myself just pushing him away with my manicured hand, and saying: “Of course it is, Silly,” in my best girly voice. Honestly, you could have picked his bottom jaw up off the floor.

I walked home to my place with a couple of the girls. I had a big bag of girly stuff with me. I walked in the door and called out to my mother that I was home. I had intended that it would be my old voice, but it was not quite as it was. She hurried into the kitchen and greeted the girls.

Then she said: “Where’s Billy?”

“Here I am Mom.” I was standing right in front of her.

“Oh my God,” she said. “You’re gorgeous.”

I knew I was, and that was the problem. With the girls I got a dressing table mirror from the garage and set it up in my room. The girls took down all my old NFL posters put up some pages from a girls magazine on how to co-ordinate fashion looks, and styles of hair and makeup.

We were still going through all this stuff when my father got home. My mother told me later that she did her best to prepare him for a shock. But whatever she said was not enough. I could not help myself. I laughed at his reaction – just like everybody else: Total disbelief. But then rising anger.

“You always said: ‘Never do things by halves’ Dad. I am going to get on the cheerleading team and I will do whatever I need to do it.”

That seemed to satisfy him. But of course, I did not tell him that I had fallen for Willow. That I loved her and could not bear the thought of her not being there, in my room, smiling at me through the mirror, jacking me off when we were alone.

The fascination extended to every mirror in the house, and everywhere there was a mirror in school. The biggest mirror was in the dance room next to the gym where we those training for the cheer squad went through routines. It became my favourite room.

The girls had got me a leotard and something called a ‘gaff’. This something that is used to pull back a guy’s junk to make the front of his crotch look like a girl. It took some getting used to, but I decided for the moves that we would be making I needed to be more aggressive and use duct tape under my panties. If you are doing high kicks you do not need a pair of nuts spilling out. The downside is pulling that stuff off after training. Best to just arrange everything so I can still pee. So, with dance practice before school and gym or field training after, I was almost permanently ‘tucked’.

Everybody at school knew it was me. Nobody ever called me a ‘freak’ or a ‘tranny’. They knew that I had made the mistake of under-estimating a girl and that I was paying the price, but that I was doubling down and doing a good job at meeting my end of the bargain. People were rooting for me to win a place of the cheer team. There were now high expectations that I could not disappoint.

Selection time came around. I had mastered my routines. I had a little interpretive dance number, then some tumbles, and then a pompom routine. The principle and the head coach seemed to stand back from the process, leaving the visiting selector to take the lead.

“Tell me about yourself, Willow,” she said.

In my best girly voice, but clear and confidently projected, I told her: “My name is Willow. I live locally with my parents. My older brother is away at college. I love football like he does, but being a girl, only from the sidelines. I love dance. I love big occasions. I am a hardworking person. If I set my mind to something I believe there is nothing I cannot achieve. My favourite subject at school is English literature - romantic poetry. And art, I like art. And dancing. I would like to make a career in dancing if possible. Or maybe the beauty industry”.

I had not prepared for this question. What I said just spilled out of me. But after I said it I realized that it was all true. Even the dancing and the beauty industry thing.

True to my word, the hard work had paid off. I won selection.

The team got together and we all celebrated as girls do, with a sleepover complete with a fashion show and doing one another’s hair. I was surrounded by my new team mates who were all beautiful girls, but even after the tape came off, none of them turned me on. I only had eyes for one, and she was in the mirror.

A couple of days after the selection I was looking at myself in the hall mirror near the lockers when Tom Gadd stopped beside me.

I have to say that I was looking particularly gorgeous. I was in my full cheerleader costume for a photoshoot after school. My shiny blonde hair was up in a high ponytail a red ribbon and waves hanging down. I had only just touched up my makeup and it was perfect.

I was just thinking: ‘Here is the most gorgeous girl in the world and she belongs entirely to me.”

Tom said: “Hi Willow.” Not ‘Billy’ – he said ‘Willow’.

So, I responded as Willow. I said: “Hi Tom”. I turned to him with my best girly face. “What can I do for you.”

“You could come out with me tonight”, he said. “To the new movie at the Majestic. Maybe have a meal together. Maybe…”.

“You do know who I am, don’t you Tom?”

“Sure,” he said. “Nothing further can be possible, right? It’s just that I don’t want to go alone and, well, I like a pretty girl for company, and you can’t deny that you’re that.”

And that was the start of that. The truth is that I could hardly blame Tom for falling for Willow. After all, I had. Big time.

Going out with a guy is so different from going out with the girls. You want to look good for him, but also for everybody else. A guy like ‘s a pretty girl on his arm because she says something about him. His pulling power and his standards are reflected in the woman beside him in the theatre or across the table from him in the restaurant. And Willow loves being pretty. That is what I do.

Some people were thinking that I had taken this way too far. I was on the cheer team now so I could now slacken off. I had met my part of the pact. Maybe turn up for the games but otherwise just be Billy. Boring and plain Billy. We could all forget the vivacious and popular Willow.

The fact is that at school the only people talked about were me, and Mandy Jones. She was kicking goals. The coach was far more protective of her now. He had a blocker to cover her from late charges, as there were plenty of teams who were told “knock the girl kicker out of the game.” She was up to it. I now counted her as a great friend. I always found a chance to talk to her while we were on the field during a game.

And I was back on the field. As a cheerleader I was there in front of the crowd. I never really noticed that the so-called ‘women’s multi-vitamins for skin and hair’ were sapping my upper body strength, because when I started I was easily the strongest to take part in throws. But I also had a solo routine that I did after Mandy kicked over an important kick, that ended with me place-kicking a toy ball into the crowd.

Yes, the ‘women’s multi-vitamins for skin and hair’ were female hormones. And it was only a matter of time before the effects of them started to become visible.

Initially the effects were to improve skin and hair. That was OK, and so was the reduction in the my erections. That made tucking so much easier and I could still jack off with a limp dick. If I felt like it. And that was less often. But then I got the swelling in the chest, and the sensitive nipples, and before you know it … well, look.

This is what I showed my mother after we got back from having our nails done together. I pulled down my off the shoulder top and they just fell out.

She said: “How are we going to tell your father?”

I said: “Best not too.”

The truth is that because I was dressing as a girl all the time, nobody noticed that my body was changing like this. Nobody that is, except Tom. And he was thrilled about it.

He now had tits to play with when we made out in his car. This was not what I had planned for us. I do not think that he planned it either. It is just that Willow is romantic and a little passionate, and so (it turns out) is he. Neither of us was going to let a few little things lower down, get in the way. And those things were now definitely little.

I guess if it had been anybody other than Tom we might have got some hard treatment from kids at school. But Tom was a football hero. And I was kind of a hero too. And there was no guy at school who would not confess that they thought I was hot enough to fuck, if only I had a pussy.

It is what Tom wanted as well. He was to get it in the end, but some years later. Just before we got married.

The End

(c) Maryanne Peters 2020