La Prima Donna
I looked out my bedroom window and saw Jamie, my favorite sissy riding by on his bike. “Hey, Babe! Looking good!” He waved back and smiled! He thought I was serious after all the things I said to him … I mean … her at school! He told everyone a few months ago that he wanted to be a girl, started wearing girls’ clothes, and he was looking more like a girl every day. What a stupid fag! I’d put a gun in my mouth and kill myself before I would make an announcement like that. Guys are guys and girls are … something else entirely; something entirely desirable, of course.
It was Friday, and I was considering what to do on the weekend. Not much thought required. My parents would be out of town, so it was time to party. Not a big party; just me and my favorite girl.
My cell phone buzzed. “Hey, Andy, what’s up?”
“Hey, Brian, you going to Flo’s with the guys?”
“Nah, I have a sore throat and a fever. Just gonna go to bed.”
“OK, man, your loss.”
“Yeah, another time.”
Click. Nothing was gonna keep me away from Donna. La Prima Donna, that is.
Then the doorbell rang! I peeked out and saw Sheila’s SUV at the curb. Crap! I coughed a couple of times as I opened the door.
“Hey, Brian, I thought you might want to hang out, but you sound like shit! Is it catching?”
“Might be. I’m just gonna go to bed.”
“OK. Get better!”
She left in a hurry. She didn’t want to catch my imaginary disease. I guess I could have told her some imaginary medicine would cure it. Sheila was hot, but she didn’t compare to Donna.
I decided to wait until all the bells, chimes, and whatever ways of annoyance that might interrupt me would stop. La Prima Donna was patient. She would be ready and waiting whenever I showed up. I lay across the couch to wait. I closed my eyes a few minutes and when I opened them it was dark outside.
I jumped off the couch and headed to my room. I pulled back the front layer of clothes and there it was. All that I needed to become Donna. I picked out a short red dress and some white heels. With makeup, nail polish, jewelry, a little work on my hair and La Prima Donna was ready to go out. I grabbed my purse and headed for the garage. I took a quick look at a strategically placed mirror on the way out and gave myself an A-plus for looks, brains and anything else I could think of. Hey! I was my own best critic.
I fired up my Mustang and headed out. I wanted to get as far out of my neighborhood as I could, but as I was passing the park I decided to stop. The weather was nice and the place was deserted. I got out and sat on a bench to watch the cars pass.
“Are you new around here?” I jumped a bit, then looked around to see none other than “Jamie the Faggot”.
“Yes, why?”
“Well, it’s just not a very good place for a woman to be out this late by herself.”
“Not safe for little girls either, right?”
“No, I was just on my way home. I wouldn’t have stopped if I hadn’t seen you.”
“Well, I’ll be careful.”
“Is that your Mustang?”
“Yeah.” (Aw crap. ‘That’s Brian’s Mustang’!)
“A guy I go to school with has one just like it.”
(Whew, a reprieve!’) “Must be a pretty cool guy.”
“Well, sometimes he’s OK, but when I try to be friends with him, he gets kinda rude.”
“Big, tough guy?
“He’s not that big, but I’ll bet he can fight.”
“Probably doesn’t have many friends.”
“Oh, yeah, he’s got a group of ‘friends’, if you wanna call them that. Sometimes, even his friends think he’s a jerk.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Oh, they sometimes talk about him behind his back. Some of them say they wouldn’t hang out with him if he didn’t have a car.”
“Well, he does sound like a bit of a jerk.” At this point, I stopped worrying about being recognized and became concerned about this jerk and his reputation.
“Yeah, and he really hates gays and lesbians and transsexuals. He says awful stuff about them.”
I decided to not say anything about him being a transsexual, because if I didn’t know him I wouldn’t have been able to tell.
“I guess there’s one in every crowd.”
“Thing is, I heard a rumor about him maybe being gay or something, but that’s silly. I would never believe it about that guy! Hey, I gotta go. See you around maybe.”
He rode away, leaving me stunned. I was also left with one question that had now become critically important; “did he recognize me?” No answer to that was good news for me. If he didn’t recognize me, everything he said was probably true.
If he recognized me, he still might have been telling the truth, or maybe he was making it all up to get even with me for all the times I harassed him. One thing I was sure of, if he recognized me, he would not keep his mouth shut.
I got into my car and drove home. My wonderful outing was ruined. I got undressed, removed my makeup and nail polish, showered, and went to bed. Did I go right to sleep? Oh, hell no. My mind analyzed and organized a thousand scenarios.
How could he not recognize me? The car was identical, but girls barely know one model of car from the next. Jamie was a girl, right? I hoped so, now, so I decided to use feminine pronouns for her from now on. She’s gotta be a girl, because girls are easier to fool. The car looked just like mine, but coincidences happen every day. She would have to be pretty gullible to believe this coincidence, though. But, would she believe this “Jock” would be sitting in the park dressed as a girl? No way … I hoped.
How the hell was I gonna find any information? I couldn’t ask someone to help me gather information; I would have to bring someone else into the picture. It would have to be someone I trusted. It would have to be someone I could tell about my friend La Prima Donna. The person I trusted this much did not exist. By the way, who the hell would start a rumor about me being gay?
So, I’m left with getting the information from the only person who has it … Jamie the Faggot. Got it! I would become her friend! She did say she wanted to be my friend. I couldn’t do it right away, though. I had to work to gain her trust. Maybe I could get ‘something’ on her. What? That’s he’s really a boy? Nobody at school didn’t know that! Maybe I didn’t have to “get” anything on her. Maybe I can gain her trust and she’ll just tell me.
Then, I remembered something I heard or read. It was about relationships with a supervisor. It said if your boss helps you in some way, he’s more likely to want to help you again. I remembered it because it didn’t seem to make any sense. Anyway, I needed help with math, so maybe Jamie would help me with that.
I waited a week, then approached her at her locker one day.
“Hey, Jamie, how’s it going?”
“OK.” She was nervous.
“Hey, I know we haven’t been the best of pals, but I sure could use some help with algebra. I could pay you.”
“OK, you say where and when. No payment required.”
So I was all set up to get the info I needed. I decided to just let her help me with my math and let her do the talking. The more talking she did, the more info I would get; whether that info was about math or other things. I asked her to come to my house and she agreed.
She showed up right on time and rang the bell. I open the door and … wow! This girl is cute! Why didn’t I notice this at school? She had a short white dress with ruffles. There was no hint of “boy” anywhere. I did my best to not show what I was thinking. This is the girl I’ve been harassing? I must have been crazy! I invited her to sit with me at the dining room table and offered her a coke, which she declined.
“Your parents are not here?”
“Naw, they’ll be home later.”
She gave me a look like, “Watch yourself, buddy”. That’s how I took it, anyway. She started right in on algebra. Obliviously, she was intent on teaching me algebra. I tried to focus, but my eyes kept going to her face, and I kept getting a whiff of perfume.
After she talked about math for a few minutes she stopped. “Brian, you seem distracted. If you’re distracted like this in class, maybe that’s why you’re having a hard time learning.”
“No, I’m usually not distracted in class, just bored.”
“Are you bored now?”
“No.”
“What’s the matter, then?”
“Nothing.”
“It’s gotta be something.” She pointed at the paper, “What number did I just say you should put right here?”
“Uh …. I don’t know!”
“What’s wrong, Brian?” She looked directly into my eyes and she wouldn’t look away!
“Nothing. Can we just get back to studying?”
“No.”
“Why not?” She told me “no?” Where is the little wimp who ran away when I harassed her at school?
“Because we haven’t been studying. You’ve been looking at me, at the wall, everywhere but at the work. Tell me what’s the matter and then we’ll start studying!”
I was in a jam! I felt myself sweating and blushing and my hands started shaking. Her eyes got wide, “Brian, are you OK?”
“I’m OK! Just give me a minute! I wiped my face with my t-shirt.
“Ewww, now look at your shirt!”
That statement suddenly put me at ease. I laughed.
She relaxed also. “Brian, you’re weird.”
“It’s just that ‘now look at your shirt’ is something a girl would say.”
“My heart and mind are female, but I don’t expect you to understand.”
I quit laughing. “OK, here’s the truth. I invited you over to help me with algebra, but not you! “I made a sweeping motion toward her with my hand.
She looked puzzled. “Maybe one of the ‘yous’ should leave. First, you have to differentiate for me the difference between ‘you’ and ‘you’.”
I was still stuck.
“Do you want me to leave?”
“No! Look, it’s not your fault.”
“Good, but I didn’t know there was a fault to be assigned.”
“Wait, maybe it is your fault.”
“Ok, what did I do?”
“You showed up my doorstep wearing that damn beautiful dress and smelling of perfume and looking so Goddamn beautiful! That’s what!”
She sat wide-eyed and blushing. This was obviously the last thing she thought she would hear. I had said my piece and I was done. The ball was in her court, but she didn’t seem to realize it. The room was totally quiet for several seconds. Finally, she smiled. “Well, I came over here as a teacher, so I thought I should look my best. Believe me, it felt strange riding over on my bike while wearing this dress. I’m glad you like it. The perfume is ‘Kenneth Cole’. Do you like it, too?”
“I like it all, dammit! It just makes it almost impossible to concentrate on algebra when I’m looking at … at you.”
“Wow, all this time I thought you hated me.”
“I never hated you. I harassed you for coming to school and announcing you wanted to be a girl.”
“Why does it matter to you if I’m a girl or a boy?”
“I don’t guess it does.”
“Was it fun to harass me?”
“No, not really.”
“Yet, you harassed me more than anyone else! Why was that?”
“I just took a lot of nerve to tell the whole school something like that.”
“Do you think I have more nerve than most people?
”
“Oh, hell yeah!”
“More nerve than you?”
“Let’s not talk about me.”
“I thought we were talking about you!”
“No way!”
“If you had a secret like mine, would you do what I did?”
“No, but I don’t have a secret!”
“I think everyone has at least one secret. Some secrets we’re just too embarrassed to let them out.”
“I don’t have any big secrets.”
“I won’t ask you to tell me any secrets, but maybe you have just one big secret?”
“Yes, but you’re not going to ask about it, so let’s get back to studying.”
“OK, I also won’t mention anyone sitting on a park bench.”
Another long silence.
“You knew!”
“Yeah.”
“What gave me away?”
“I have this habit of remembering numbers for no reason at all. I also remember license numbers from cars.”
“So who have you told?”
“No one.”
“No one? How is that possible?”
“Believe it or not, it’s easier to not tell something than to tell it. You don’t have to say anything. You also don’t have to say things like, ‘don’t tell anyone’, or ‘I didn’t tell you this.’”
“If you actually told no one, you’re one in a million.”
“Thank you. Now, let’s talk about how much it’s gonna cost you for me to continue to keep quiet.”
“What?”
“Just kidding. I don’t tell stuff. Blabbing everything you know is a good way to get in a lot of trouble. Did you know our math teacher, Miss Brown, is actually a man?”
“No shit?”
“Brian, I just told you that I don’t tell stuff. If Miss Brown were actually a man, his secret would be safe with me.”
“You’re all right.”
“Thanks. That means a lot, especially coming from someone who hates me so much.”
I just smiled.
“So, you wanna talk about your hobby?”
“Hobby?”
“Crossdressing; wanna talk about it?”
“No!”
“Actually, you’re dying to talk about it.”
“What? How would you know?”
“You’ve been holding on to a secret for a very long time. Now you have a chance to talk to someone about it. You can’t let a chance like that go by.”
“I guess you’re right.”
“So, do you wish you had been born a girl?”
“I think girls have it easier in a lot of ways. I think I would like to have been born a girl, but once you’ve lived as a boy, it’s hard to switch. I guess you would know all about that.”
“I do, but my heart and mind are female. All my life I’ve been pretending to be a boy. It’s stressful, and now I feel much more free. I don’t have to pretend anymore.”
“You like boys?”
“That’s a tough one. I was raised as a boy, and I guess I learned the sexual preference that was expected of me. I’m just gonna wait and see about that.”
“I don’t think I could ever even kiss a boy. It just seems gross.”
“I guess you can learn your sexual preference, but your gender is not changeable. Have you ever imagined the results if people found you out?”
“Oh yes, I have! The results range from ‘terrible’ to ‘so bad I don’t have a word for it’. My dad would kill me. Not just that, he would torture me to death. My mom would cry, and my friends would laugh me out of school. Hey, you said some of my friends were not really friends.”
“That’s true. You go overboard on the hating gays, etc. You would probably be surprised to find out who in our school is gay. Chances are some of them are your friends.”
“I would say that’s not possible, but I wouldn’t believe my own private life if I were not me. Do you know some people who are in the closet?”
“Of course, and you would be surprised. I’m also sure you wouldn’t ask me to give you names.”
“No way! I don’t want you to start naming names of any kind. You could be dangerous.”
“I could, but I’m kind of proud of my ability to keep my mouth shut. The only person I’ve ever ‘outed’ is myself, and that became a necessity.”
“Look, it’s getting late and we haven’t got a lot of studying done. Wanna call it a night? We can actually study next time.”
“OK.”
“Load your bike in the trunk of my car. I’m not gonna let you ride the bike home dressed like that.”
“OK, thanks.”
I gave her a ride home. My previous worries seemed silly now. I was glad to have a new friend and confidante and, hopefully, my math grades would soon improve.
I went to bed without my previous problems, but I still didn’t go to sleep easily. Tonight, I had a pretty girl in a white dress on my mind. This was a girl I would never have considered before tonight, but damn she was a beauty! I finally fell asleep and dreamed of things that I will never divulge to any human being. I have a new friend and that’s it. She’s a friend like any of my guy friends … for now, anyway. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
My friendship with Jamie may lose me a few friends, but I’m fine with that. The ones that abandon me will likely be the fakes, and one true friend is worth dozens of fakes.
As for La Prima Donna , I’m sure she’ll still be around. Who knows? Maybe she’ll take on a more important role at some point in my life.
The End
Comments
La Prima Donna...
He may be surprised by the number of friends, real friends, he may get. Good story.
Jessie C
Jessica E. Connors
Jessica Connors