Skater Girl
A Short Story from my Latest Anthology on Amazon
By Maryanne Peters

Mike was always better on a skateboard than me, but not that there was a huge gap between us when I was really into it. It is all about practice, and when other things took precedence I did not get in as much riding in as Mike. By other things, I mean girls. Girls don’t hang around skate parks. Maybe just a few, but not the kind of girls I like. Don’t take my word for it: 12 million skateboarders in the US – and only 8% of them female. It’s basically a guy’s sport – here anyway.

But internationally both girls and guys have competitions, and now it is in the Olympic Games. Skateboarding for girls sort of took off at about the time I was out of it – competitively I mean. That was when Mike came to me as his best friend and told me what he had done.

You might say that I should have noticed the signs. He had grown his hair really long, but plenty of guys did. He had smooth legs, but guys did that too – some said it was for speed, or just to show off a good shape to the leg in short pants. But the truth is that I had no idea until he told me.

He was upset – troubled. It is times like that when you realize who your friends are – who counts on you, so that you know you can count on them.

He mumbled and talked around it by talking about substandard girl’s competitions stealing the limelight, but I still had no idea what he was on about. In the end, he just blurted it out: “I’ve been competing in girl’s competitions as a girl, alright?!”

I could easily have laughed at the idea, but he was upset. I had to ask him how this had happened.

“I just entered the competition in my own name,” he said. “I just wanted to show that they were not up to our standard. Hell, I didn’t even know that Michael can be a girl’s name too. They call me Mikki. I won, and now the shit has really hit the fan.”

I said: “You won? What competition? When?”

“Last year. Over in …”, he named the town next over from us. It was a long way for him to go to compete, but it figured. He was known locally. Over there he could be Mikki, a girl skateboarder.

“But that was a year ago,” I said. “So that’s done. It’s over, right?”

“No,” he said. “I have been doing invitations. Some paid stuff. They want me to go to the State contest, and maybe go pro. Well, I suppose I am pro … kind of, with the prize money and all.”

I said to him that he had to be kidding, but he had a folder with some stuff. It was all victory certificates: My friend’s name, sometimes with “Mikki” in brackets, as the winner of a girl’s competition. I had to ask the obvious question: “So what can I do?”

“I need you to be my support crew,” he said. “My parents don’t know. I know what they would say. They would be really pissed. But in going to State I will not be able to just turn up and skate, as I have done till now. I will be staying overnight. I will need to be a girl 24/7, or at least 24/2.”

“You still haven’t told me: How can I help?”

“You can drive me,” he said. “We can hide out together. You could be like … my boyfriend or whatever.”

I was more amused than shocked.

He continued: “I mean, if we just hung together, I would not need to mix with the others. I just turn up and ride. You and me just shun all the publicity. Plus, with a boyfriend it will be easier for me to pass as a chick.”

“But how will I look? I mean … how do you look like as a girl?” I suppose my only concern about posing as a boyfriend was that I might look gay. He was still a guy, like me. But I was starting to see that he might be something else.

“I can show you,” he said. “Just don’t laugh.”

He was carrying a sack – a cloth bag over his shoulder like guys do to carry a sweater while you are skating. He pulled from it a hairbrush and a small box. He pulled the band out of his hair and started to brush it, turning away from me as he did. I remember thinking that he was passable already, just because his hair was so long and seemed to shine in the sunlight.

Still with his back to me, he pulled from the box a small brush for his eyebrows and then a mascara wand and a lipstick. The box was plain and a bit beat up on the outside but there was a mirror inside the lid. He worked quickly – he clearly had skills. Then he turned around.

I was smiling in anticipation of being amused, but the smile quickly disappeared. He was gone and Mikki stood before me. “This is what I look like as her.”

I think that I gulped. I know that I felt very strange. You know somebody all your life and then you meet their female double. There is nothing that can prepare you for that – in particular when she just happens to be hot.

“You don’t need me to pass,” I said.

“But I do need some support. Please pal. I can’t go there on my own and mix with the other girls. They will be sure to find me out. Maybe not the guys but this is getting serious. I’m taking the prizes and they are getting bitchy. With you there, I can just ignore them.”

“You’re paying for everything?”

“I will pay you so you can pay for everything,” he said. “A girl likes her guy to pay.” And he gave me a little smile, like he was flirting with me. And it sounded like his voice had changed a little, just for those last few words.

I agreed to do it. What kind of true friend could refuse? But if I felt any discomfort about it, it was in my pants. I tried to shrug it off as just something to do with the hair before he turned around, but I had been aroused. Just a bit maybe, but there was no denying it.

Like I said, in the US anyway, skateboarding is for guys, but the notion of “guy’s sports” and “girl’s sports” is a social construct. It doesn’t have to be that way, it just is. It is not as if girls can’t do all the moves guys can. Why are there even two competitions? Some people might be critical of what my friend was doing, but I was happy to give my help.

It is best if I call her Mikki and her from this point, for reasons that will become clear. So ‘she’ filed the entry papers, ‘she’ booked the room and ‘she’ got into my car, but not dressed as her.

“We will need to stop on the way and buy some stuff,” she said. “Skaters only wear jeans or shorts and tees, and the only thing I do is wear a stuffed sports bra underneath, but I will need to have something else to wear. Just nothing too girly.”

The dress was my idea. I admit it. I told her that she might need something just in case, but the fact is that I wanted to see her in a dress. It was almost as if seeing her so completely dressed as a woman would somehow get the thoughts out of my head that seemed close to gay, which is not something I wanted to be.

The pierced ears were my idea too, but to help her through that I had my ears pierced as well. We just had black studs in them. I bought the hoops for her as a gift, but I didn’t tell her how hot I thought she looked in them.

We arrived at the motel and we got a room with single beds.

“Are you young people Okay with that?” The lady on the counter asked. “The age of consent is 16 in this state. For a few extra dollars I could put you in a double?” But we took the twin.

I said that the question was a good thing. We looked like a couple, so she looked like a girl. I said that she needed to get used to looking like she was my girlfriend like staying close and maybe holding my arm.

“You are enjoying this,” she accused me. “You don’t have a girlfriend at the moment, so you want me to make you look good.”

“Hey, I’m here for you, remember? I don’t know these people. Why would I care what they think? It is about you looking like a girl.”

But the truth is that even in front of strangers any guy wants to look cool, and the coolest a guy can be is with a hot chick on his arm. And she was right – she made me look good. And the fact that she said it, means that she knew that she was hot, whether or not she wanted to be.”

We just ordered pizza and we stayed in that night, but I insisted that she run through some “girly conduct exercises.” We watched two chick flicks on TV and she was picking up some stuff, and I was pointing out other stuff.

“I should be out skating,” she said.

“You know you can do that, but this stuff is just as important if you don’t want to be found out.”

But the truth is that I liked her like this. When she acted girly it turned me on. That night I had a wet dream thinking about her. I mean I woke up in time to catch it in my hand then I had to take it to the bathroom, flush it, and wash my hand.

We went to the contest and she stayed away from the other girls as much as she could. She was still lacking in confidence in getting close to them, but bit by bit that confidence grew. She started to relax and just be a girl.

Mikki said that the girls had told her: “We understand you hanging with your guy because he’s hot, but we’re on the circuit together so we need to swap numbers.”

“Don’t get a big head from that compliment,” Miki warned.

“What did you say?” I asked. “Did you agree I was hot?”

“I kind of had to, didn’t I?” she asked.

Mikki did not win but she came a close second. It was just a slip-up. Things can happen. There was going to be a special party to award additional prizes.

Some of the girls said to Mikki: “We’re going to dress up. What about you?”

Miki said: “I don’t have anything to wear.”

But I said that we should go. “You have a dress. You just need some nice shoes and maybe go to Sephora and get your makeup done?”

She did not want to do it. She accused me of forcing her. She said that I was deliberately trying to turn her into a sissy.

“Hey, this is not my mess. And you can’t be a sissy if you’re a girl. And while you’re on the girl’s skate circuit, I guess that’s what you are.”

We went out and got some shoes. They had wedge heels. She snapped again: “You want me to fall over and make a fool of myself.”

“I want you to look good,” I said. Well, after she had her makeup done she looked a hell of a lot better than just good. She was a knockout.

She spent a long time looking at herself in the mirror and tossing her hair around.

“Have your hair done before your makeup next time,” the beautician said. “But you have great hair. Maybe just part it in the middle and let me put a couple of quick curls in the ends. And some spray.”

Honestly, when we walked in, she was the best-looking girl in the place. I will tell you how good she looked – one of the sponsors came up to her and asked for a little private time. I insisted on being included and he agreed. He said: “We’re looking for female skateboarders with the right look. If you endorse our products there could be a sponsorship deal in it for you. We would cover travel and expenses, and a bit more.”

Before I could get the details she said: “I don’t use your products.” And just like that, she pushed them away.

“You’re crazy,” I said after we had left the party. “You didn’t even ask about the deal.”

“This is happening too fast,” she said. “I’m getting worried.”

“Hey, nobody will find you out looking like this,” I said. “What are you talking about?’

“No. Not that. I’m getting worried that I’m changing. I feel like I’m not me anymore.”

“Who’s the best judge of that?” I exclaimed as we entered our room. “Buddy hug? Bring it.”

I reached out my arms and she stepped into them. Her head was below mine now she had kicked off the shoes. That center parting under my nose and the smell of hair spray. Her arms were around my waist, and I was hardening.

I had to say: “Done.” I had to ask for the first shower so I could jack off, closing my eyes and thinking of Mikki half-naked with tits. And she was worried about changing?!

We went home in the morning. I don’t know how Mikki explained herself to her parents. She could try to remove the girl in the car on the drive home, but I did not see a boy walking up the front steps of her house. In fact, I never saw that boy again.

I found the guy who offered the sponsorship on the product website and I called him. I explained that we had met and that I was Mikki’s boyfriend, and that I thought I could talk her around to a sponsorship deal if they were still offering.

“But she wants to endorse hair and makeup products too. She is going places. The deal can be conditional on her achieving wins or placings if you like. But it has to be good. There has to be a big cash component. And she wants control of her image. And by the way, don’t say anything to her about this call. You make your best offer and I will guide her through, but don’t tell her that I had a hand in it. She’s a very independent young woman, as well as being the hottest thing on a skateboard.”

We went to another contest that following weekend in another town, this time not so far to drive. I picked her up from her house early in the morning of the competition and she walked out the door wearing girl’s clothes – jeans but definitely a girl’s look. Maybe it was too early for her folks to see her.

She said that she had been texting the other girls. She had set up some social media platforms as Mikki. She would be catching up with some of them after the contest. There would be another award evening. She said that she hoped I had something nice to wear, as she did.

She said nothing about the sponsorship deal. I just figured that they were getting it ready.

She won that contest. She stepped straight out of the car and down to a half-pipe and just cleaned up the competition. I saw the guy I had spoken to on the phone taking pictures of her but as I approached, he just held up his hand and winked. I thought I understood. We should not be seen talking together.

Straight after that Mikki went with her new girlfriends to get their hair done and dress for the dinner. I had good clothes but I was underdressed. She should have warned me. I hardly saw her. I hung in the back, just stepping forward to clap and whistle when she won the contest medal.

She did not come back to the twin room that night. I lay awake waiting for her.

She called me to say that she had made other arrangements to get home.

There was another contest the following week, but she sent me a message to say that she was flying. That was a better idea. It was too far to drive.

“Do you want me to come as your boyfriend?” I texted her.

“No”.

“Just a friend?”

“Thanks, but no.”

The truth is that the night of that gran ball where she looked radiant in a ball gown with her hair up and I looked like a tramp in the crowd, was the last time I saw her. In the flesh I mean. She is all over the magazines and websites. Including in a bikini – how is that possible.

I look at those images sometimes, when I jack off and think how things might have been

I don’t know how she got away with it, but I am not going to reveal her secret. That would harm her but it would make me look bad too, in more than one way. I mean I would look gay, and an asshole for ruining her life. Instead, I just have to find a way to move on, but it is hard to forget my Skater Girl.

The End

(c) Maryanne Peters 2022