DANNY Chapter 38 by Roberta J. Cabot This is a story about Daniel, a guy with a unique talent and an even more unique problem: A great singing voice and the looks of his gorgeous sister. And how he and his family deal with his having breasts. And how he ends up as the female lead singer for a high-school cover band as well as a radio DJ. The gang sucessfully got Danielle on-stage as Danny's substitute, and no one noticed. Whew! Danny, now Robin, started his Nighthawk show, and prepared to get some callers on the air. Never a dull moment with Batch Fourteen, and Dan & his gang.

 
Chapter Thirty-Eight:  The Nighthawk Show

***** (Tracey) *****

As the commercials ran, I mentioned to Danny that there were about five blocks of two and a half minutes worth of commercials slated - which was most of the allotted commercials for the entire show. Mom had decided to blow most of it on this one section of the concert show.

And then, as I was explaining, I heard Mom over my headset telling me to arrange for Robin to close out the program. Another one of Mom's last-minute brainstorms. I mentioned it to Danny.

"What!" Danny exclaimed, "that wasn't in the plan!"

"I know, I know!" I said. "I just found out about it myself, Danny." I poiinted to my headphones.

"So, does that mean we have to do this substitution thing again?"

I shrugged. "Seems Mom was impressed with Danielle's performance, and…"

"Well, I'm not doing this again! Does Mrs. P think this was easy?"

***** (Tracey) *****

Danny and I brainstormed a bit, and decided that we'd try to record an extro during the next commercial break. But right now, we had to take care of business.

The control booth counted us down, and I relayed.

"Here we go, Danny! And in five! Four! Three! Two!" And I pointed at her.

"And, I'm back, cats and kitties," Danny said. I barely cringed this time. For whatever reason, hackneyed references like that worked for the Nighthawk.

"We got several people on the line at the moment, and we've picked people at random. I'm sorry that we can't put everyone on. Anyway, right now, we have someone named Rodney on the line. So, what up, dude!"

And it was just like it usually was, just like in the booth.

Danny was in rare form and took care of business like never before. It was like being on TV has made her more hyper and more chatty than normal. And the callers reacted to her energy.

We had started with a phone caller, and I put up the station's logo in the PiP, with the name "Rodney" superimposed on the logo, and Danny, or the Nighthawk, chatted with her usual wit. She only spent a minute with Rodney, though, and Danny asked me for another caller.

This time, I selected a Skype video caller, and the novelty of us seeing the caller in the PiP box made for a more interactive and fun call. It didn't hurt that the girl, Nina, was pretty cute. Just wished her bandwidth was bigger - we could have skipped the jerky video.

Still, we went a little overtime with Nina, which I signaled to Danny before I put through another Skype caller. This time, it was a cute little nine-year-old girl named Suzy, and Danny got her to open up. By the end of two minutes, the girl was giggling helplessly, flattered by the attention Danny was paying her.

After that was yet another video call, this time a teenager that seemed familiar to me. As Danny chatted with the girl, I eventually identified her as a schoolmate of mine. I didn't know her personally, but I kept seeing her around my school. She seemed nice. Maybe I'll introduce myself when I see her in school. Hopefully, she won't be weird about me and my… "condition."

In my headset, I heard that they were ready to break for a commercial so I made the overhead crossed-arms sign.

Danny subtly nodded and wrapped up her latest chat. We then broke for yet another block of commercials, and after I made sure that we weren't transmitting, I queued up my Photobooth app, and over the next three breaks, we did a couple of short twenty-second commercial breaker clips as well as one hundred-and-fifty-second one, with a few seconds of the empty "booth" as the clip's "tail." This longer one was the exit video mom wanted, and I made sure to get Danny on the left half of the screen only. This would give the people who were going to make the credits room to roll the text on the right.

These were all on the fly since we had no time to prepare. Hopefully, they'll be good enough for mom. I made sure that the form factor was the same as the video feeds, and made sure that the audio was crystal clear - no noise and no distractions. I named the file "for ending - feel free to add b/g music."

It was easy to fake the spiel for the clip since we knew the segments coming up, and Danny play-acted like we'd already seen them. After thanking All the deejays, and the members of UB by name, Danny, as Robin, also mentioned me and the gang individually by name, as well as all the Glee Club members. Lastly, she thanked KRPX TV, Rockrgrrl, Cowgirl Jeans and some of the other major sponsors, and then said that she'll be seeing everyone on her regular Saturday show. I then cut to several seconds of the empty booth, and that was it.

That was nerve-wracking, to say the least. Good thing, too, since we were like thirty seconds away from another round of calls. Danny asked for a paper towel and gingerly wiped up her neck and brow, careful not to smudge her makeup. For me, I didn't care, and just mopped my entire face and neck.

The storage room wasn't very well ventilated, so thirty seconds into the first call of the third block, Danny, feeling warm, doffed the jacket. I was too late to warn her not to do that. I mean, pitstains and all. But Danielle had luckily picked her an outfit that didn't show stains. And though she made taking off her jacket a casual thing, the fact that she had that bodysuit underneath made it a sexy thing.

Just clad in her off-shoulder white boatneck bodysuit, shiny leather leggings and stiletto riding boots, Danny nonchalantly swept her brunette tresses back and continued talking. She just didn't know how beautiful she was. With my meds, I hardly reacted to such things anymore, but I felt some stirrings this time. After all these months, I was sexually aroused. There was just something in the air whenever Danny was around. But I shook off Danny's aura, followed her example and just continued working.

This final batch went just as good as the others, except, in this one, the last caller turned out to be a bunch of girls spending the night in one of their friend's houses so they could watch the show together.

This last call was hilarious since none of the girls allowed anyone to go uninterrupted, all of them excited to be on the air, which got Danny and me laughing.

One of the girls asked who was there with me.

"Oh, that's my producer, Tracey," Danny called. "Say hi to the girls, Tracey."

I snuck my hand out in front of the camera and waved, my fingers seen on screen.

And the girls went, "Hiii, Tracey!"

I snuck my hand out in front of the camera and waved again. Giggling, the girls waved as well. And with that, Danny started wrapping up the call.

With a few more words about her coming back later, she turned the feed back to the show.

"That's it for the Nighthawk," she said, "but I may be back later. Thanks for spending time with me, and I'll look forward to talking with all of you guys again during my regular Saturday morning radio show. For now, I return you to our favorite band, Unlimited Bandwidth and the show currently in progress.

"So, here's UB, with Kenny Loggins and Stevie Nicks' 'Whenever I Call You Friend.'"

I got the signal in my headset. "Aaannnd, we're out!" I exclaimed.

"Yayyy!" Danny waved her hands in the air and cheered.

"Okay, now to get you dressed," I said.

"Dammit, Trace! Can't I even get a little break?"

I brought out the big bag that Danielle had packed for her.

"Nope!" I said and chortled like a Nazi torturing someone.

to be continued...

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