Lunacy
A Short Story
By Maryanne Peters

I always had a soft spot for Edgar – I think that is the right way to put it. I always pride myself on being a hard man, but when it came to Edgar I was a bit soft. I had known him for years; his mother and my mother had been good friends.

“Josh, look after Edgar.” I can remember it being said to me more than once. He was only a little younger than me, but he was always much smaller and skinnier. In fact he was not like me at all in build or appearance. But I have to say that he was always up for anything; despite him have no strength or ability to follow some things through.

There was always a question about his mental health too. He was called “highly strung” whatever that means. Sometimes he could be very withdrawn and even lock himself in his room. His mother used to say: “It’s just that time of the month for Edgar”, although I always thought it was only girls who had that thing.

In high school we moved in different circles. I hung with the football crowd and after school I spent time at the local boxing gym. I was a jock, I guess. Edgar was a cross country runner, but that is not the same thing. That is not really a team sport even though there was a team. It is a lone exercise.

He was also into art. He painted pictures which I suppose were quite good. They were generally just scenery and vases with flowers and stuff like that, but every now and again he produced really dark and angry abstract works. People said that he was disturbed, but not all the time. Most of the time he was just a small uninteresting guy.

I still saw him every now and again. Our mothers would be at one another’s house and I would come by his house or he mine. There was nothing to talk about. Just a nod, and maybe: “How’s things going, Ed?” or something.

When we went to college I went on a football scholarship and Edgar won an art scholarship. We could be accommodated on campus in a shared room and somehow our parents arranged for us to be in the same room.

“Josh, look after Edgar.” Maybe Mom said it. Maybe his mom did. Even if it was never said, it was implied.

Edgar was quiet and tidy. It suited me. As for how he liked the arrangement, I teased him that he would have to lie quietly while I was fucking any girl I brought back to my bed, and that did not seem to amuse him. But he just shrugged his shoulders.

Edgar still kept up his running, but only at night. It would usually be for less than an hour, but in our first month as roommates one night Edgar went out for a run before sunset and he never came back. I mean, he came back in the morning, but he had been out for the whole night.

I should have asked him where he was, but I figured that if it was me raging all night would I have to tell him where I was. I figured that he would tell me if he thought I should know, but otherwise, forget it.

But then, a month later it happened again. This time Edgar had a full knapsack when he went out, and when he came back. I never took much notice the first month, but this time I could see that he looked exhausted like he had not slept the whole night. And his face and his whole body were smooth and pale, and he smelt as if he had fallen into a flower bed. There also seemed to be traces of paint on his face. He had paints in the room for his art so that should not have seemed too odd.

I felt I should say something, so I did: “It must have been a big night. I bet you have a story to tell me.”

“Don’t ask,” he said. But not with a sigh like: “Don’t ask.” More like: “Please don’t ask because I don’t want to tell you.” We were roommates and friends I suppose, so I didn’t ask. But I started to wonder what was going on.

Only once a month got me thinking. I then realized that last night was the night of the full moon.

Do you know the origin of the word “lunatic”. It means a person who suffers from “insanity of an intermittent kind attributed to changes of the moon”. Call it moonstruck – “mentally unbalanced, romantically sentimental or lost in fantasy or reverie”. Was it really a thing? I would need to wait a month to find out.

I was ready on the night. His knapsack was already packed and he was already in his tracksuit when I got back to the room. He said that he was going for a run. I was ready to follow.

I kept my distance. He was jogging at first but then as we left the street and went into the park he broke into a run as if trying to lose me, but I knew I had not been seen or sensed. Then as he left the path and broke across a lawn he seemed to change his gait to a skip, almost dancing strides. He left the shadows into the light of the full moon and he dropped to his knees holding his head by the temples.

My first thought was to run over to him and reveal that I was behind him. He seemed to be in pain. “Josh, look after Edgar.” But I did not always follow that directive, and for now curiosity overcame any ancient directive. I hung back in the trees.

Then he seemed to shake. He pulled off the top of his tracksuit and then the pants. He stood there with his back to me facing the moon and shaking, the moonlight showing just the pale arc of his body, seeming the whitest of white.

He pulled the band out of his low ponytail and threw his head back shaking it. Somehow, I had never realized how long and thick his hair was. He seemed to wail, and then as I watched the tone of that wail seemed to go from his light tenor almost to a soprano, as if he was transforming into a woman.

And then, to confirm just that, while still trembling as if in a partial fit he reach for his knacksack and pulled out a dress and a garment to wear under it. The dress might politely be called a Little Black Dress or LBD – short in the bottom and low in the front, but given that it was in sparkly material, a Bimbo Dress might be a better description. And the garment that he put on before it was designed to produce the body worthy of a dress like that. I could see that it was a struggle to pull on. It was flesh-colored and pinched the waist plus it had padding in the bust and the rear.

It seemed that he made whimpering sound as he pulled it up to his armpits, which I could see were devoid of hair. Were they always like that? I confess that I did not know. Who looks for such a thing? But why that sound? Was he fighting this?

But once it was done and he was standing there before the moon dressed as a woman, the shivering stopped. With what seemed skill practiced or instinctive, or driven by some invisible hand, he reached into the knapsack for a hairbrush, and then a small mirror, eyeshadow, mascara, lipstick, and stick on fingernails. All of this was done by the light of the moon.

The last items taken from the knapsack were a pair of heels and a small clutch on a chain. He concealed the knapsack in the very tree I stood behind. I could here him spritz himself with scent, and even with my breath held behind that tree I could smell it. It smelt like … woman … or sex, or both.

He walked barefoot over the grass until he reached a path and then she walked away. I say she because that view from behind was no man. By the light of the full moon something had changed – something verging on magic.

I had to run so as not to lose sight of her as she walked to the east gate of the park, close to the restaurants with a view of the gardens, and the nightclubs beneath.

She walked into a dance club called “Back Boiler”. I knew it as a pick-up joint. I wanted to follow. I had to follow.

“Sorry Buddy, but you can’t come in wearing running gear.” Those words cut me, and I don’t know why. I needed to see what happened next. I needed to get in. Then I saw that behind the door was a guy who went to the same boxing gym as me, the heavy backup to the guy on the door. I waved at him.

“Yea, I have a change of clothes in the back,” he said. “You can borrow stuff to meet the dress code. I will just go and get it.”

Still it seemed ages before I got inside. I started looking around for Ed.

When I saw the girl in the dress, in her dress, I thought that I had made a mistake. This girl was at the bar laughing, with a hand on a guy’s shoulder and fingering his hipster beard. She had tits, or flesh pushed up to show a cleavage that seemed to promise tits of some size. But it was the dress. It was Ed, and she was laughing now, and whispering in the guy’s ear.

I don’t know why, but I felt betrayed. It was a weird thing, but I felt that somehow I had been in the park when she had been created and so somehow she belonged to me.

She pulled him onto the dance floor, and they did what I suppose you could call a dance. It was really sex standing up with clothes on. She was grinding her hips into his groin. It was too much to watch. I ordered a drink. I tried to look away. I found a dark spot to stand in. I watched.

“Josh, look after Edgar.” This was so dangerous. She was teasing this guy. It would have to end in tears. He was not a tough guy like me, but he was still a guy and she was … what was she? And why am I thinking she? It just seemed that when he found out that she had a cock he would beat her up. I would if I had that kind of nasty surprise.

She was looking for sex. That was clear. It was like she did not even care that it could not happen.

So Edgar was gay all along. But that did not seem right either. Maybe we didn’t talk as deeply as some roommates do, but we talked and I knew him. He was not gay. It was just that tonight he was not Ed. He was somebody else. Moonstruck - lost in fantasy or reverie. Lunacy.

If there was going to be violence then I would deal with it. I know what to do if he gets heavy. But I had to put a stop to this before that. So I went over. I went over to cut in on their dancing.

“Josh!” She recognized me immediately as a confirmation. Her eyes were wide with shock, blue and lined in black with wonderful eyelashes. This person was so beautiful that I gulped when face to face.

“Who’s you friend, Edie,” the hipster said. Edie. She was Edie.

“I need to get you out of here before this goes bad,” I said.

“This is the way it goes, Josh,” she said. “There is nothing I can do about it. This is the way I am.”

“You know I am not going to let you get into trouble,” I said. “I have always been here to stop that.”

“Maybe you should find some other girl?” said the hipster.

I turned to him and said: “Fuck off”, which he did. I then said: “We’re leaving.”

I have to say that I felt awkward steering “Edie” to the door. I was aware for the first time just how small and slight this person was. Or had the moon made her so?

It shone on us as we climbed up the few steps to the sidewalk. She faced it – the moon – and seemed to absorb the light it cast upon her. In that light she appeared luminous and black and white, with only the red lipstick and nails and the blue eyes betraying that color still existed.

“I saw you change,” I said. “I followed you and I watched it happen.

“You saw the transformation?” she said. “You see what happens to me by the light of the full moon?”

“I mean I saw you get changed,” I said. I saw you put on that body suit thing, and then the dress, and arrange your hair like a girl.”

“I am a girl,” she said. “Every month for one night, I transform. I have tried to resist it, but I can’t!”

I took her by the arm and led her across the road, maybe in some anger. I wanted to lift her dress, but not until we were off the road. I wanted to show her the lie. It would be hanging in her groin. I wanted to burst her bubble; to break her illusion. I led her into the park.

“Look,” I said. I pulled up her dress. She was wearing black see-through lace panties. I pulled those down. And there, between her legs, was not a cock but the lips of a vagina.

At first I was puzzled. But then when I touched it to try to understand I realized that it was latex rubber. It was a perfect shape and form and seemed to include an opening, but it was not real. It was part of the forming garment, or body suit. It was a false female body. The momentary thought that I had been exposed to real magic was thankfully gone.

“Fuck me, Josh,” she said. She seemed to be pleading. “I need to be fucked before the night is out. Fuck me - please fuck me or let me go back to the club.”

I looked into her face. Who was moonstruck now? Mentally unbalanced or romantically sentimental, I was looking at that beautiful creature and my pants were straining. I had to fuck, and I had to fuck her. But first I needed to kiss those red lips.

We went back to the tree where she had hidden the knapsack and I stuck my penis into that rubber thing, but that was not the end of it. When we went back to our room on campus, I pulled off that thing and fucked her in the flesh while she clawed the sheets and cried out for more. Every inch of her was shaved smooth except for her hair and eyebrows which I had never even noticed were more masculine than feminine.

We fell asleep in each other’s arms in my bed, and when we woke in the morning the moon was gone, as it always should be.

“Who are you today?” I asked. “Because if you believe that last night you transformed into a woman by the light of the full moon we will need to get you psychiatric attention.”

She smiled and kissed my cheek. She said: “Silly you. I did transform last night. But the difference is that now, this morning, with the rays of the sun on me, I understand that I will never change back.”

The End

© Maryanne Peters 2021

Author's Note: The world of the half-elves is a magical place … which probably explains why I never go there, despite Erin’s best efforts. But then she suggested: “Josh is a college boxing champ, his roommate Edgar is younger and a member of the cross-country team -- on the first night of the full moon, Josh watches as Edgar apparently transforms into a woman - curious he follows her but all she does is go running in the moonlight … Josh decides to confront his "werewoman" roommate, but the only real magic is that they fall in love.” As I said to her in response - There are no werewolves but there are people who believe in them, as for vampires in that classic crazed Nick Cage movie “Vampires Kiss”.