Chapter two

Several weeks passed when the incident that would change my life happened. I was working on homework and a special project Cindy and I were doing together. It was a science project and we wanted to share what we had been observing at the clearing for the last two weeks. The birds had laid their eggs and we were waiting for them to hatch.

Mom was going to go to the store and was putting on her makeup and called me into her room.

“Come here Mark. Let me do your eyes,” she said, holding out the mascara wand in her hand. To this day I still loved the way we played our little game.

“Wait, let me try something different,” she said, trading the mascara for an eyelash curler.

I sat like a good boy should and let Mom curl my lashes before she applied the mascara. She had just finished the third coat when there was a knock on the front door of our house.

The door opened and Cindy shouted as she entered, “It’s me.”

“We’re up here Cindy,” Mom replied, as the door slammed shut. I was still in that moment where the special feelings between my mother and I made me not even think of what would happen when Cindy saw me with mascara for the first time. I might mention Cindy and I would regularly enter each other’s home without waiting for someone to open the door for us, our friendship was just that way. She entered my mother’s room and stopped. I thought her eyes would pop out of her head when she saw me. She let out a small squeal and ran to me, taking me in her arms and hugged me for at least a minute.

Pushing me back, she said, “You’re beautiful.”

“Its just mascara, Cindy.”

“It’s not that, you’re absolutely beautiful, God, those eyes, oh Mark, I’m so jealous.”

“Its just the mascara Cindy, my mom could do the same to you.”

“Mark, your lashes are so much longer than mine, there would be no way.”

“Mom, please do Cindy’s lashes and show here that she will look the same as me.”

“I’ll try, but honey, your lashes are so long that I can’t think of a person that would look as pretty as you.”

Mom curled Cindy’s lashes and then applied the mascara. We stood side by side in front of the mirror on Mom’s vanity. It was then that I knew, I was beautiful. Cindy was gorgeous, but I had something special and I was beautiful. My eyes stood out like beacons in the night, and as much as I hated to admit it, I was prettier than my best friend.

“Mark, why didn’t you tell me?” she asked.

“Cause it was just something Mom and I did, it was our little thing.”

“Have you ever dressed up like a girl?”

“Good grief no, I’m a boy. Mom’s been doing this for as long as I can remember. It’s just a game.”

Cindy looked and then dropped the subject. It would be our little secret.

We both turned eleven and nothing was ever said again about the mascara incident. Cindy started to model clothing for several online distributors of girls clothing and was making some decent money. We would spend hours on line comparing her to the other child models in her age group and she would tell me about the clothing she was wearing, how it felt and looked, whether she liked it or not. I would agree or comment as if I was her best girlfriend not her best friend, but girlfriend. This became my life when I wasn’t with the guys I hung with during school and sometimes after. I might have been Cindy’s best girlfriend, but I was still tough as nails, Mark, when I was with the boys in my crowd. Frank had decided I was fodder once more but changed his mind after I gave him a bloody nose. He never bothered me again, even after I had my big break. That break came a year later.

Cindy and I were as close as ever. I knew every boy she adored and every one that broke her heart. I knew every feeling she had from her first kiss until her last. She would come to my house and we would sit side-by-side pouring out our deepest thoughts while she polished her nails or I would do her toes for her. Girl friends did that.

“Let me do yours?” she would ask.

“No way Cindy. I’m your best friend, not a nail model,” I giggled.

“It won’t hurt.”

“It might if I went to school with polish on, no.”

And that was that. Cindy knew where to draw the line, as did I. I was still a boy, a very pretty one, but still a boy. That was about to change.

I had just turned twelve when the big break came. As I had mentioned, Cindy’s mom had gotten her into modeling. Being a former model herself, she had the connections to succeed. Some how after one of Cindy’s modeling shoots her mother asked if she knew of anyone pretty enough to be a model. Apparently if she found someone and that person signed a contract she would get a finders fee for her service.

Cindy laughed and her mother asked what was so funny?

“The only person I can think of is Mark.”

“Mark James?”

“Yes Mark. He’s the prettiest person I know.”

“But he’s a boy.”

“I know Mom, that’s why I’m laughing.”

Gloria, Cindy’s mom was silent for a moment as she thought about her daughter’s best friend. She pictured his face and his soft features and thought about those eyelashes she so easily overlooked on her daughter’s best friend, a boy. Maybe, just maybe there might be something there. It wouldn’t hurt to ask.

“Cindy, do you think Mark might want to become a model?”

“I don’t know, he never mentioned it.”

“How did you find out he was so pretty?”

“It was by accident. I went to his house and his mother called me up stairs and it was just after she had put mascara on him.”

“Why would she do that?”

“He told me it was a game he and his mother have been playing since he was a little boy because his lashes were so long. It was just a game and nothing was meant by it.”

“Do you think he would let me put a little makeup on him?”

“I don’t know why not?”

“Would you ask him for me?”

“Sure Mom.”

Cindy returned home from her trip and called me the minute she walked into her house.

“Mark,” she said, when I answered the phone.

“Hi Cin, what’s up?”

“God I had so much fun this trip,” she gushed. “It was different than the last time. We even had lunch with the woman who owns the product line I modeled. Her clothes are soooo nice.”

“Tell me about them.”

“No come over and I’ll show you.”

“Okay, be there in a minute.” I said, and put the phone down.

“Mom, I’m going over to Cindy’s,” I yelled, as I ran through the door.

“Be home for dinner.”

“Yes Mom.”

A minute later I knocked on Cindy’s front door.

“Come in Mark,” I heard her mother say.

Opening the door, I said, “Hi, Mrs. Meyer.”

“Hi, Mark, Cindy’s up stairs in her room.”

“Thanks.”

Now, normally a parent wouldn’t let a boy go to their daughter’s bedroom, but both my parents and Cindy’s knew I really wasn’t a boy, but her best friend. Oh sure, I was a boy, but not when it came to Cindy, I was the person she trust most in the world and she had had more than one discussion with her parents about me and our special relationship. She also confided her feelings for other boys sexually and as she said I was her best girlfriend and there was never any sexual feelings, on her or my part. We were best friends, period. I couldn’t help noticing Mrs. Meyer staring at me as I ran up the stairs to Cindy’s room.

“Hey,” I said, as I entered her room.

“I have so much to tell you. Just wait until you see the modeling disc they gave me from the shoot. I have it in my desktop. Let me turn it on.”

Cindy loaded the disc and started it playing.

Her first outfit was a dress. It was obvious that it was for someone older as the length stopped above mid-thigh, and she was wearing heels. Her makeup made her look much older and she was gorgeous. I noticed too that she now had a much different figure than when she left two days before.

“Oh Cindy, your gorgeous,” I gushed.

“Don’t you just love it?”

“I do, but how did you get your figure?”

“They padded it,” she said, as she turned and posed confidently on the screen. “Even you could have curves like that if you wanted?”

“Why would I want curves, I’m a boy.”

“No you’re not, you’re my best girlfriend and you know it.”

“I’m still a boy.”

“Not when you’re around me when we’re alone.”

“Only because I fee like a girl when I’m with you. What we have is special.”

Cindy hugged me. I guess girls never tire of hugging and it makes us feel good. Us? What am I thinking?

The disc ran for forty minutes with both of us commenting on the fashions. If something didn’t look good I said so and if they did I also commented. We were just two girlfriends growing into women, well Cindy was and I was on for the ride.

“What do you think?” she asked.

“I loved it.”

“How would you like to do the same thing?”

“What?”

“How would you like to model?”

“You mean boy’s clothes?”

“No, girl’s.”

“How could I do that, I’m a boy.”

“You could with my mom’s help.”

“That’s just plain silly Cindy.”

“No it’s not. Please let my mom do something with you. I’ll be fun?”

“You promise?”

“Mark, you’re my best friend. I would never do anything to hurt you.”

“I know.”

Yep it was hugs time again.

Cindy and I went back down to see her mother and I would have an idea of what she wanted to do.

“Mom, Mark says he’ll let you do what ever it is you want to do,” Cindy said.

“Oh Mark, we’re going to have so much fun,” Mrs. Meyer said.

“What do you want to do?” I asked.

“You’ll see, but mainly I want to take some pictures of you. First I’ll take ones of you without any makeup on and then I’ll go to work on you,” she laughed.

Mrs. Meyer took several pictures of me, from the front and side with her digital camera. When she finished she showed Cindy and me the pictures. Yep, they look just like me, I thought.

“You know, you have beautiful eyes, even without makeup,” she said, in an almost reverent tone of voice.

“Now I want to try something different. Let me put this wig on your head,” she said, removing an auburn wig from a Styrofoam stand.

She placed it carefully on my head and brushed it out. Glancing in the mirror I realized I no longer looked like a boy, but a girl with a very grown up hairstyle. Mrs. Meyer took more pictures of me with the wig on my head. Next came the eyelash curler and mascara, more pictures, and then she went all out. I had no idea so much work went into looking pretty, eye shadow, three different shades, eyeliner, more mascara, eyebrow pencil with the promise that if what she thought would happen she would pluck my brows to clean them up. Lipstick and gloss followed until she said she was done. More pictures followed from every angle possible. Mrs. Meyer had covered the mirror after my first look at myself without makeup and I was dying to see the pictures. The whole time Cindy had watched on silently.

“Mom, show, Mark, the pictures.”

“Okay, Mark are you ready to see the next big name in modeling?”

“I guess.”

Naturally I was curious as to what I looked like after all the work Cindy’s mom had done to my face. To say I didn’t recognize the woman in the photo would be an understatement. I was beautiful and I looked like I was twenty years old.

“I can’t believe that’s me.”

“Believe it Mark, you’re going to make some waves, girl.”

“But, I’m not a girl Mrs. Meyers.”

“You might not think so, but your pictures say something else.”

I removed the cover from the mirror and just stared at myself. There were no words to express the feelings I had at that moment. I was beautiful and my best girlfriend had shown me just how pretty I could be. After seeing my image in the mirror I had no doubt I was my best friend’s girlfriend no matter how much I tried to convince myself I was a boy. When I finally smiled at myself in the mirror, I knew I would be breaking hearts.

“Okay Mark, it’s time to remove your makeup. I’m sure you don’t want to go home looking like a super model, I’m not sure your mother would understand.”

Mrs. Meyer removed my makeup and sent me home a half of an hour later. I was still in awe from what I had seen. I had always thought Cindy was the prettiest girl I knew, but after seeing myself, God this was so messed up, I was way prettier than her. At least I can still she’s the prettiest girl I know since I’m still a boy.