The Pageant: Then and Now
A Short Story
By Maryanne Peters

Part 1 – Before the Pageant

“Is that really your hair? I can’t believe it,” said Mac, at last working the mouth that had just gaped for a full minute.

“Color highlights, curlers, backcombing and hair spray and shit. You would not believe what I have been through.” said Brad. “Like I just said, I wish I had never got Mom involved.”

“You will win the prize, Man,” said Mac. “You just have to, looking like that.

Mac was trying to imagine some of the other guys that he had heard were entering. A couple would just be treating it as one big gag and hamming it up like drag queens, but there were a few who were slim and could be pretty. But a cheap wig would not be as good as what Brad was doing. His own longish hair had been styled and sprayed, and the color looked great.

“But the shoulders. What do you think? The spaghetti straps make them look like the wrestler I am – don’t you think?” Brad was twisting this way and that in front of the full length mirror in his mother’s bedroom

“Not when you look down and see those tits of yours,” marvelled Mac, Brad was in a much lighter wrestling grade than him, and the shoulders would not look of place on a supermodel.

“It’s the off-season flab in my pecs pushed up. The rest is all padding. But with these shoulders I still think I look like a guy.”

“Trust me, you don’t” said Mac. “Hey, there is no hair on those arms.” He had a sudden urge to touch that smooth skin, but he held back.

“None on my legs too,” said Brad pulling up his taffeta skirts to reveal shapely legs. “Or anywhere else for that matter.”

“She gave you a full body wax? Man, those legs look smooth and soft. It that the smell of moisturizing lotion? And you have had a pedicure too, to match the manicure.”

“Mom is a perfectionist, like I said. She said no way was I turning up not looking right. She said that I was like - representing her salon. She said that her reputation was at stake. All body hair had to go. It hurt like hell, but now with the moisturizer, it feels kind of cool. She even had me practising the runway walk. You want me to show you?”

“Sure … OK.”

Mac backed away. He was still reeling from seeing his friend look so different – so like a girl, and a pretty one too. And now this girl was walking across the room like a beauty queen.

“Yeah, you have that down pat,” said Mac. “If you get down to the final placings, then you will probably get asked the stupid question and have to take the microphone.”

“I have that worked out too,” Brad said: “My name is Bryony and I want to work for the United Nations and build world peace and freedom from hunger.” The voice was good too. Intelligent, precise and distinctly feminine.

“Bryony. That’s a nice name.” Brad didn’t notice the look he was getting. He was looking at his hair while his friend was admiring those legs and how the heels made them look shapely. But when nhe noticed it prompted him to look down. He never thought that he had very well-defined legs, but now they looked perfect. It seemed a pity that the long skirts would hide them. He would have to find time to lift the hem at some stage that night.

As for Mac, he was just an observer. They were both involved in wrestling and other sports together, although Brad was in lower grades. Mac was too large and muscular to participate in the “Womanless Beauty Pageant” even if he wanted to, and he did not.

But it seemed to Mac that Bryony belonged in that dress. The way she played with and tossed her lovely hair about seemed to arouse him a little.

He corrected himself. It was better that it happen here rather than in full view of others watching the show they were about to head off to.

Part 2 – After the Pageant

“We have all seen beauty pageants, Mac. We know how the beauty queens behave when they win the title,” said Brad. “It just all clicked in, I just gushed and thanked everybody, including you.”

“I love that voice,” said Mac. “It seems like you can’t throw it off.”

“Not while I am dressed like this. Not while I am wearing the crown.” Bryony was flushed and gorgeous. She had won. It only seemed right to Mac. She had been the most beautiful girl in the room, male or female. And while others had pulled off their wigs as they stepped off the stage, Bryony’s hair was her own and so was her face.

Brad’s mother was basking in all the glory of her success. So many mothers approached her commending not only how she was able to convert her rough son into such a beautiful young woman, but how she had been able to coach his presentation. Her salon would reap the rewards. Mothers would seek her services and send their daughters – especially those tomboy girls in need of a lesson or two in femininity. She would be busy. Her son Brad had done her proud. Or was it Bryony? She would miss the daughter whose company she had enjoyed for the past couple of weeks.

But Bryony simply wanted to go. She was in a happy place in herself, although all the boys she knew just looked on in amazement or confusion, which can seem like the same thing. She was the cause of all of this. It was a special night in so many ways. She did not want it to end – not yet, anyway.

Mac was not confused. The others were wondering what had happened to him. Mac had his car nearby and was ready to take Bryony wherever she wanted to be. But there was a tinge of embarrassment which is why he had ducked out so quickly.

“Why me, Bryony?” he said, and she pulled the hem of her dress into the passenger seat. “I mean thanks for the thanks but what did I do? How did I help you with your presentation? The guys will be wondering what we have been up to.”

“It was the way you looked at me, Mac,” she said. “It made me feel as if I was a woman, and that made it easy for me to be one.”

“I saw you looking at me too,” said Mac. “You were a woman up there. Maybe I was just reflecting that back at you?”

“And what about now? What do I look like now?”

Mac had put the keys in the ignition but he had not started the car. He needed to let go and turn to her, with her made up eyes, big and glowing, looking at him in the dim light.

He leaned over and kissed her on her painted lips.

“Does that answer your question?” he said.

“I guess it does,” she said. “But it raises a whole lot more. Tonight was a special night. It is like a fairy tale, and I am under a spell. Like an enchanted frock or something. As long as I wear this, I am Bryony. But what about tomorrow? I don’t want this to end. I want to be Bryony tonight – all night. I want to see where this will go.”

“I want you to be Bryony tonight,” said Mac. “And maybe beyond tonight, but tonight for sure.” He started the engine and pulled out of the park.

“Aren’t you worried about what will happen to me when I take off this enchanted frock?” she asked.

“I can’t wait for you to take it off,” said Mac. “In fact, I really can’t wait. I want to stop at this motel up ahead. What do you want to do?”

“I want you to pull into that motel and kiss me properly,” she said.

She surrendered her mouth to his, just as she would surrender her body. But not there is that car. He rushed to get a room, his hands fumbling for the fake ID he carried, and for the cash to be paid up front. He held up the number tag and she clipped across the concrete to the unit, waiting on the threshold.

“Let me carry you in,” said Mac.

She seemed as light as a leather, or perhaps she gave him greater strength. Certainly he felt powerful. He felt that he had a task that night. He was going to make this beautiful person a true woman, with the power of his own flesh. He was going to do good in the world by making sure that Bryony could stay in it, if that what she wanted.

Her dress fell away before he could tear it from her. It revealed a see-through slip with underwear beneath – a bustier (although Mac would not know the name) and a pair of nude-colored body-forming panties.

“I don’t want to take these off,” said Bryony. “I don’t want you to see any sign of a male on me. Can you just make a hole in it, about here? Make me a pussy here. Do you have your trusty pocketknife?”

It was the one on his key ring. He had it in his hand. But first he needed to lie her down and run his hands and his lips over the smooth surfaces of her body – her cleavage, her inner thighs, her neck. She gasped with each contact as if experiencing pleasure for the very first time.

“I am as hard as iron and as big as I have ever been, Bryony,” he said. “Are you sure that you can take me? I don’t want to hurt you.”

“I will go crazy if we don’t make love this very second,” she said. “Please forgive me for not telling you, but out of hope I have prepared a little. I have some lubricant in my clutch bag, and I confess that I have been exercising my back pussy, for the last few nights. Is that too weird?”

“Not as weird and me jacking off thinking about you, lying in front of me just like this – all woman,” he said.

“Cut me an opening,” she demanded. “Then bury your tool deep inside me. Plant your seed, but kiss me first.”

Mac was about to collect the real prize of the evening.

The End

© Maryanne Peters 2022

Author’s Note: This story if from a short piece I wrote and posted on line which prompted a fan, Deborah Kate Christopher, to comment: “I totally got goosebumps with how it ended. will you include an expanded edition into your forthcoming collection, perhaps?” This is that.

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