Can Pete get any help with his problem?

Joanna Linklater had perfected her image as the prototypical tall, blond, carnivorous cheerleader. Our school wasn’t large, but last year, not only had the Friendly Lions football team made it to the state playoffs, so had our cheerleading squad. And Joanna had already made it known that as head cheerleader this year, she intended to lead the Lionesses to a repeat.

Once Jake had gone downstairs then, it was no surprise when she grabbed the quilt covering my nakedness and demanded, “Lemme see! I wanna see Pete’s vagina!”

“No!” I protested but it came out weaker than before because my sobbing had produced a wad of phlegm and snot in my throat that almost choked me. “Glargh!” I added.

Joanna pulled on the cover and I pulled back, defeating her attempt to reveal my nakedness. “C’mon,” complained Joanna. “If you’ve got a pussy now, then it’s just us girls here.”

“Aggh! Don’t say that!”

“Maybe your dick has grown back?” suggested Megan.

That distracted me and I felt a leap of hope, but I couldn’t spare a hand to check; Joanna was yanking this way and that and grunting with the effort. I doubled up fighting back as I realized she had switched tactics! Now, she was trying to pull me off the bed!

“Oof!” I yelped as my ass hit the floor. I tried to wrap myself in the comforter again but Joanna took advantage of things and jerked it completely out of my hands.

I folded around my middle, whimpering. My hands confirmed that there had been no change in the status quo. My dick had not grown back.

“Let me see, damnit!” Joanna demanded. She poked me with a pink-painted toe.

“If you don’t let her see,” Megan pointed out, “she’s not going to give up.”

“Cad subwud gib be a dishoo?” I asked.

Joanna bounced over to the dresser and returned with a wad of soft paper.

“Thag you,” I conceded, unwinding to take the offer. I spread my legs while I wiped my eyes, blew my nose, and coughed up a wad from my throat. “Happy?” I asked grumpily.

“Damn,” said Joanna. She squatted down in front of me and asked, “Can I get a closer look?”

“Now you’re polite about it!?” I didn’t want to give in, but the principle of the thing no longer mattered. I shrugged.

She grinned and went down on hands and knees to peer at my new equipment. “It looks just like a vagina,” she noted. “Maybe your dick got sucked up inside?”

I didn’t dare hope. “You’re not going to go feeling around inside looking for it!”

“Aww,” she said, grinning. “You’re no fun anymore, Petey.”

“That should probably be my line,” Megan noted. She had sat down, resting her chin on the vanity table chair back. I glanced at her but her expression looked decidedly neutral.

Joanna laughed. “Aren’t you the slightest bit curious about how it would feel?” she asked.

“You’re a pervert,” I accused Joanna.

“Only if you’re a girl,” she noted. “If you’re just a boy with a vagina, then I’m perfectly straight.”

Megan snorted and Joanna flashed her a grin.

All I wanted to do was be left alone so I could cry without anyone seeing.

“Let’s go downstairs and see if Jake actually knows how to make coffee?” suggested Megan.

“What about Pete?” Joanna asked.

“Leave him,” Megan said. “Let him have a good cry and he’ll feel better.” She paused at the door, waiting for Joanna. “Pete, your clothes are around somewhere. Get dressed and come down for coffee. I’ll make eggs and toast.”

“Hey,” Joanna protested, moving toward the door. “It’s my kitchen.”

I watched them leave with some relief. Megan’s remark about a cry making me feel better stung a bit, because it seemed to be true. I did feel better having cried about it, and that sounded just way to girly.

“I’m a halfback, halfback’s don’t cry,” I grumped. If I could cry so easily, had whatever happened to me changed more than just what was in my crotch?

I went into the bathroom and looked at myself all over, not spending a lot of time on the big problem but looking for other things. I’m not a big guy, it’s not that much of an advantage for a running back. In fact, at 5’7” and 145 lbs, I’m both the shortest and lightest guy on the Varsity. On defense, I line up at free safety, as much for my ability to read a play as for my speed.

My hair is black, my eyes blue—my heritage is Scandinavian, Irish and American Indian. Those hadn’t changed; I still had high, broad cheekbones, a squarish chin, slightly slanted eyes, a bigger than average nose and a wide and tall forehead. It was still my own face.

My shoulders and chest had definition and my arms some bulk, though my hands were still small for my size. My legs were where I carried most of my muscle, but again, I had small feet.

Nothing had really changed except my dick and balls were gone and I had a pink-lipped slit where they used to be. Or actually, a little further back. I had to use a hand mirror to see.

I had a moderate amount of hair on my body and just recently started needing to shave my face. I had turned eighteen in early September, a senior in my last year at J.C. Friendly Central Union High School in Friendly, Arizona. I wasn’t exactly a star athlete, our school wasn’t big enough for more than one star and my friend Jake as quarterback on the football team and pitcher when baseball came around had that position sewed up.

I felt proud of my contributions at running back and second base, though. We’d made it to the state tourney last year in football and just missed in baseball. I was dating probably the prettiest girl in school, Megan D’Auguste and got invited to all the cool parties.

I stared at the mirror in my hand and wondered how this could happen. I couldn’t think of any reasonable explanation. Magic? A curse from God? On the chance it might be the last idea, I tried praying but I just couldn’t believe that a Supreme Being would bother with giving me this most horrible of days, for what? Cheating on my math homework?

Having sex with Megan when we weren’t married? Yeah, but, how about all the other people who did such things and didn’t end up losing body parts? It didn’t seem fair. And wasn’t God supposed to be fair?

And magic—magic wasn’t real, was it?

I looked at the mirror again and decided, yes, it must be. If it wasn’t magic, it was something just as strange and unbelievable.

I heard something and turned to close the bathroom door as I heard the bedroom door to the hall opening. “Pete?” I heard Megan call.

I didn’t answer. She could figure out where I had gone. If I were the victim of some magical manipulation, was Megan involved? Her family were from New Orleans, home to half of all the voodoo legends I’d ever heard of.

I heard her move across the room and stop outside the bathroom door. “Pete?” she asked again.

“Yeah?” I said. I probably sounded surly. The line of thinking I had been following made me suspicious.

“You should get dressed…” she began but I interrupted.

“I’m not hungry, I’m not coming downstairs.” Which was silly; obviously, I would have to come down sometime.

Megan sighed. “I want to take you to see my aunt and great-grandmother. Maybe they can help you.”

“Huh? How can she be both your aunt and your great-grandmother?” I asked, my brain not actually working at the time.

“No,” she explained patiently. “Two different people. But Aunt Louva is a doctor and Granny Marie is a conjure woman.”

I opened the bathroom door a crack. “A what?”

“She makes salves and things from herbs.”

I eyed her through the narrow opening. “Voodoo?” Megan is pretty dark, with tightly curled black hair; She looked like she might have a voodoo witch for a grandmother.

Megan rolled her eyes. “Voodoo is an African thing. We’re Creole, so, yes, there’s some tradition involved that some people call voodoo. Okay?”

I shut the door again. “Go away and I’ll come out and get dressed.”

“Okay,” she said. “Don’t take too long. Jake says you and he are due at an after game meeting at two.”

I snorted, not sure if I was going to go to any such thing. All the guys on the team would be there and the coaches. Usually we had pizza or hamburgers at such meetings, but just the thought of facing the team made my stomach cramp.

I heard Megan leave the room and close the door behind her, calling out, “Meet me downstairs.” Then I rushed out to find my clothes and get dressed. My underwear didn’t fit right but I ignored that and went to the top of the stairs.

I could see Megan waiting for me at the front door. I started down and I heard Joanna call me. “Petey!”

I ignored her. She could see me coming down the stairs from the kitchen where she and Jake were apparently eating toaster waffles and microwave bacon, from the smells.

“Pete,” Jake called and I did look toward him. “Keep your spirits up, I’m sure the doctors can do something for you.”

I muttered a reply and followed Megan out the door. It was crisp and cool outside, typical Friendly weather for early October, even in the middle of the day. People think of Arizona as all hot desert but Friendly is in the mountains, most of the town above 4000 ft. It can get pretty chilly and we usually have snow before Christmas.

I had my Lions windbreaker on and felt warm enough. Megan was wearing her cheerleading outfit, all in yellow and green with white leggings. She had a heavier jacket than mine and plodded toward the cars without looking up.

“Megan?” I called to her but she shook her head and didn’t answer.

What’s she pissed about? I wondered. I’m the one with the missing dick. I followed her to my car, a beat-up old Chevelle station wagon that used to belong to my mom. Megan went around to the right side and waited for me to unlock it.

I debated going to her side to unlock for her, but her silent attitude made me think better of it. We’d only been dating for a few weeks and I didn’t have all her moods mapped out. Apparently, we were both feeling grumpy, so best avoid possible provocation.

I unlocked the driver side door and clicked the power door-lock to unlock her side, then slid under the wheel. She climbed in on her side but didn’t slide across the bench seat to get within my reach. I shrugged and started the beast up. Dad and I kept it in pretty good tune, so it gave that satisfying 396 roar and I put it into gear to back down the driveway.

“Where we going?” I asked. It felt good to be moving; less like I might start crying again.

“Office in the medical building next to the hospital. Aunt Louva runs a free clinic there on Saturday. We can see her when she breaks at lunch to start her hospital rounds.” She wasn’t really looking at me but she didn’t sound pissed, more like she was distracted. “I called and left her a message that we were coming.”

Now I knew which way to turn when I reached the street. We weren’t that far from the hospital, or the Star Valley Medical Center, as it was called. Two turns, pass the Country Club and Pioneer Park, then take Park Street almost directly to the hospital parking lot. I got headed the right direction and glanced at Megan again.

“You, uh, you really think your aunt can help me?”

She shrugged and turned her face away. “I don’t know. But maybe she or Granny Marie will know someone who can.”

“I hope so,” I said, though really I was trying not to hope. It would hurt too much if it didn’t work out.

Megan turned back to look at me. She frowned. “They’re going to want to examine you,” she said.

“Your granny, too?” I tried to say that like I thought it a funny idea. But, yeah, a conjure woman was a kind of witch, wasn’t she? She might be my best chance to fix things.

“Granny Marie, yes. Aunt Louva, too. They’ll want to see.”

“Uh,” I grunted. I felt a finger of dread touch me somewhere I didn’t want to think about. “Does your aunt have any experience with this kind of thing?” I assumed a conjure woman might have some knowledge of magic, and what else could this be?

She nodded. “Oh, yeah. Well, yeah.” She looked at me again and I could see some worry in her face. “Aunt Louva is a gynecologist,” she said.

“A what?”

“She specializes in problems women have with their equipment.”

“Oh, hell, no!” I yelped.

“You’ve got the gown on backwards,” said Dr. Verre.

I drove without saying anything for a bit as we wandered through the upscale housing around the country club where the road and the beautiful homes squiggled around the ponderosa pines. I always forget that this area isn’t actually in the city limits until I reach the highway and the welcome sign that says, “Now Entering Friendly, Arizona. Population 12,765 FRIENDLY People.”

Corny but it usually makes me smile. Not this time, though.

So, driving. Driving takes some concentration, and with a little effort, enough to keep me from thinking for a few minutes maybe.

One direction on the Beeline Highway leads to Phoenix, about sixty miles south and a little west. The other direction, called Zane Grey Avenue, goes to the center of town and then on to Winston, our chief rival in the Mogollon Rim League, almost 40 miles on the other side of the Rim itself. But I wasn’t thinking about football.

A few hours ago, I had woken up after spending the night losing my virginity to the cheerleader in the passenger seat, Megan D’Auguste. But I’d lost something else: my dick and balls were gone, replaced this morning with what looked like a girl’s pussy. It still made me cringe just to think about it.

Megan said maybe her aunt and granny could help. Aunt is a doctor and granny is a conjure woman, whatever that is. But Megan just admitted to me that Aunt Louva is a gynecologist.

“Hell, no,” I repeated. My insides still felt like ice and the missing part of me ached with absence. I tried to keep myself distracted with driving because too much thinking might cause me to start crying again. I wanted to be angry about what had happened to me, but the truth was, I felt too scared to be really mad. The best I could manage was a dogged feeling of resentment.

“Petey,” Megan began but I cut her off.

“It’s obvious this is some sort of magic, so it’s your granny’s department, not your aunt’s,” I said, prepared to get stubborn about this.

Megan had a peculiar hang-dog expression when I glanced at her. I frowned. “Something you’re not telling me?” I asked.

She shook her head. “Not—not really. I guess I’m just feeling guilty.”

“Did you do something?” I demanded, almost pissed suddenly.

“No, no, Petey. I didn’t do something. But… but I am something.”

“Huh?” I paused at the light at the bottom of the hill. The next light would be our turn, east on Ponderosa toward that edge of town where the hospital was across the street from the big Mormon Temple.

Megan didn’t say anything. When the light changed and we moved forward, I asked her, “You are something? What does that mean?”

“Granny Marie…” she began then stopped. “Magic? This has to be magic.” She shrugged. “It’s in my family…do you see?”

“No,” I said, biting back something mean and nasty. But she looked so hurt at the tone of my voice that I softened it a little. “You could have warned me.”

We turned at the corner and Megan moved a little closer to me. “What would I have said? I didn’t know that… that something might happen? I mean….” She trailed off.

I chewed on that.

“Would you have believed me if I had warned you?” she asked. “Petey, my family are all witches and wizards, best not… not….”

I snorted. “But it was your idea,” I pointed out. “You practically insisted!”

“I know,” she said in a small voice. “You see why I feel guilty?”

I didn’t reply, making the turn onto the apron of asphalt around the Medical Center. The parking lot was not too crowded, probably not all the offices were open on a Saturday morning, so I found a spot near the entrance easily. The four-story-tall wing was the hospital itself, but the part that was just one and two stories was medical offices and a pharmacy.

I got out and Megan scooted over to exit on the driver’s side too. I stood there a moment and she took my arm in both her hands. “You really do need to see Aunt Louva, uh, Dr. Verre. Granny’s going to want to know just what has been done to you.”

I didn’t shake her off, but let her lead me into the building. Just walking made me aware again of what was missing in my pants. The feeling of wrongness left me weak in the knees with shivers running up my spine. My eyes burned and my mouth wanted to twist up. It took effort to maintain calm and just walk.

No one stopped us when as we passed through a waiting room crowded with young mothers and small children. We did stop in front of a door marked STAFF and Megan rapped lightly on the glass.

I glanced back at the young women, some holding babies on their laps and Megan whispered to me, “Well-baby clinic.”

I’d never heard the phrase before but I could figure out what it meant. Most of the women did not look terrifically affluent, and while Friendly is not in what is known as a depressed area, the town did have a number of families that were less than wealthy. Getting a check-up for a baby was probably good, and Megan had mentioned earlier that this was something her aunt did for free on Saturdays.

A lot of the women and kids were as brown or browner than Megan, not unusual in Friendly where people with my sort of complexion were barely more than half the population. It meant a little less, locally, than maybe it did in the whole country.

While we waited for someone to let us in the side door, I looked around the room, smiling because who can scowl at a baby? Most of the women and children smiled back, and weirdly, it made me feel better. I had a problem, sure, but life is good in a world where babies smile at you.

The door finally opened and an older black woman in a blue nurse’s smock let us in. She was much darker than Megan but something about the line of her jaw or her eyes told me that this was one of my girlfriend’s relatives.

I saw she was also older than I had first thought. “Ma petite,” the old lady said. “Is this the boy you told me about?” She had a accent, or maybe more accurately, a flavor in the way she spoke. It made me think of rich coffee and jambalaya.

“Yes, Granny Marie. This is Petey Petersen. Petey, this is my Granny, Marie Duquesne.” She pronounced it Dushane, but I saw the spelling on the old lady’s name tag.

“Pleased to meet you, ma’am,” I said. Not that I was, but I’m always polite to older people.

“Call me Granny Marie,” she said, showing her very fine teeth in a smile. “Surely, your given name isn’t Peter, is it?”

I blushed. “Uh, no ma’am, but I go by Pete or Petey at school. I don’t like my first name much. Uh, my relatives call me Hunter or—or Hunt.” That’s not my given name either, but very few people knew that secret, outside of family and school administration.

“Sometimes I call him ‘Hun’,” said Megan and they both giggled. How old was Granny Marie? However old she was, she didn’t sound ridiculous giggling like a girl—she sounded like she enjoyed life.

But the old lady nodded. “Margaret here prefers to be called Megan,” she added. “I see you’re not volunteering what your first name really is.” She smirked, “Must be really embarrassing.”

I felt myself blush but I kept quiet. No one in the world needed to know that my parents had named me Gayle Hunter Petersen. Especially not now.

Another woman came into the room, just about splitting the difference in skin color and age between Megan and Granny. She was dressed in a pantsuit in some shade of violet and had a stethoscope around her neck and a clipboard in her hand. “I’m Dr. Verre, Megan’s aunt.” Like most doctors, she didn’t put out a hand to shake, but she did give me a long careful look.

Megan introduced me. “Aunt Lou, this is Hunter Petersen, called Pete, the boy I told you about on the phone.”

“I-I….” I couldn’t seem to do anything but stammer. She was a beautiful woman, as pretty as Megan, and I felt especially awkward at the thought that she would have to examine me.

“I’ve got a busy day and lots of people in the waiting room, but I’m going to squeeze in an examination for you, Mr. Hunter, and since I’m running a free clinic here today, I’m not going to ask for your insurance credentials,” Dr. Verre said, looking me directly in the eye.

“Huh?” I said. Why was she calling me Mr. Hunter?

She sighed. “Get up on the table, please. Sit with your feet on the step.”

I climbed into the position she indicated and she proceeded to take my temperature, pulse and other vitals, and use her little flashlight on my eyes, ears, nose and throat.

“You seem remarkably healthy, Mr. Hunter. Are you suffering from a mild hangover?”

“Uh….” I decided to nod in answer to that. “Yes, I guess I am. Ma’am.”

She nodded and wrote something on her clipboard. “I’m going to need you to undress for the rest of the exam, Mr. Hunter.” She looked at Megan while Granny removed something from a cabinet and placed it on the padded exam table. “We’ll all leave while you get undressed and Megan will wait outside. When you have the examination gown on, opening in the back, knock on the door and Marie and I will come back in.”

“I….” I still couldn’t think of anything to say. “Yes, ma’am,” I managed.

They left, Megan pausing to give me a peck on the cheek. “It’s nothing,” she said, trying to reassure me. “Aunt Lou is very gentle.”

Once alone, I almost panicked. What was I doing there, in a gynecologist’s office? This had to be some sort of a nightmare, it couldn’t be happening. I’d been knocked unconscious in the football game last night, or I had gotten drunk at the party and fallen downstairs…. I was really in a hospital with my head shaved waiting for brain surgery….

I put a hand on the unreasonably flat front of my pants. I stuck it down in my pants. If I was having a nightmare, it was a damned consistent one. I was glad I was alone in the room because I was very near to a panic attack. I leaked tears quietly for awhile then wiped my eyes and splashed water on my face.

I got undressed quickly after that, trying not to think about things. When the knock came at the door, I flinched. I was sitting on the padded table, holding the gown closed in front of me and trying not to cry again.

“Come in,” I called out, my voice squeaking slightly. The door opened and Dr. Verre came in followed by Granny Duquesne. Megan stayed out.

Dr. Verre smiled at me. “Nervous?” she asked.

I nodded, afraid to speak.

“Everyone has their first time, honey,” said Granny.

I winced.

“You’ve got the gown on backwards,” said Dr. Verre.

“I thought you said…” I began but she cut me off.

“I know very well what I said,” she interrupted, heading for the door again, followed by Granny who made that giggling noise again. “Put it right quickly, Mr. Hunter, please.” I felt my face turn red.

When they came back in, I had shifted the gown around, opening in the back, which mystified me a bit, and I was sitting on the padded seat again, my bare bottom on the paper cover.

The two women helped me to a new position on the table, leaning back on a slant, with my knees apart and my feet in foot-holding posts they attached to the table. A blanket had been added across my knees, but my feet were wide apart. I had never felt so vulnerable and frightened.

The doctor sat on a stool between my feet, I could just see her face looking over my belly. She had some instruments on a small table near her. Apparently, she had sat down just to make sure things were ready, because she stood up and came around to my side.

“I’m going to do an abdominal exam first, Mr. Hunter,” she announced then proceeded to poke, prod and massage my abdomen, from my ribs right down to the top of my thighs. She talked to me about what she was doing but I didn’t seem to be able to concentrate on what she said.

It wasn’t painful but it did get uncomfortable in places. She looked sharply at my face a couple of times while prodding me.

Then she went and sat back on her little stool. She appeared to be examining my groin visually while putting a plastic glove on her right hand.

“Hmm,” said Dr. Verre. “Remarkable.”

I didn’t want to know but I asked anyway. “W-what?”

“Remarkable in its ordinariness,” she expanded. “You have a perfectly normal, healthy-appearing vulva.”

I didn’t know that word but I wasn’t going to ask.

She moved closer. “Outer labia are well-formed, inner labia protrude slightly, showing pink. There is a normal sulcus separating the lips. The clitoral hood and clitoris….” I had trouble hearing her, my brain wasn’t processing what she was saying. She was touching me, I could feel her but I couldn’t tell where. It wasn’t a place that I’d ever been touched before.

“There’s no sign of inflammation or trauma of any sort.” She kept talking. “I’m putting my index finger inside your vagina, I want you to clench your muscles there.” I felt that and realized that she had her hand partly inside me. Inside….

Muscles? Clench them? I didn’t know how to do that. She may have continued talking, but I didn’t hear anything else because the roaring in my ears drowned out her voice. A shiver of icy dread reached my brain and my vision went black.

“It’s hard to refer to you as ‘mister’ when I have contrary evidence,” said Dr. Verre.

I heard someone say, “I think she fainted.” It sounded like the old woman with a note of amusement.

“Well, for goodness sakes,” said the doctor. “Are you all right, Miss Hunter?”

“I’m—I’m not sure,” I heard my voice respond. “Did you—what did you…call me?”

“Oh.” Now she sounded amused. “Well, it’s hard to refer to you as ‘mister’ when I have contrary evidence in front of me. Give her the mirror, Marie.”

Granny put a mirror in my hand and moved it to where I could see what the doctor was doing. She had some peculiar-looking instruments in her hands, but, as I had in the bathroom back at Joanna’s, I could see clearly where my dick and balls used to be. They were gone.

“If you faint again, I’m going to use the smelling salts,” warned Granny.

I shook my head. Instead of feeling light-headed, I felt sick at my stomach. But I watched as Dr. Verre put a gleaming instrument up inside me and squeezed the handle creating an astonishing sensation. The metal was cold and uncomfortable but it was the feeling of being opened up that made it freaky.

With the mirror, I could see a narrow pink tube up inside me. “This is your vagina, Miss Hunter,” the doctor said. She used more tools that reminded me of dentist equipment. “At the inner end is your cervix and beyond that….” She paused, continuing her examination. “And yes, you appear to have a uterus.”

She nodded. “I palpated the shape of your womb and your ovaries when I did the abdominal exam,” she said. She turned to the older woman, Granny Marie. “I think we’ll want to do a full ultrasound but that lab is not open on Saturday.” Then she looked me directly in the face. “Miss Hunter, you are apparently a fully functional female. You can expect to have your first period in the next several weeks. Unless, of course, you get pregnant.”

I didn’t know whether to faint again or just throw up, so I settled on screaming.

*

My scream came out high-pitched and ragged like I didn’t have enough air. It ended with choking and coughing as Dr. Verre withdrew her instruments from the examination of my insides. She made a noise herself, something like a soft yelp of surprise. She rolled backward on her office chair, looking up at my face.

“Just breathe, honey,” said Granny, serving as nurse. “You’ll be all right.” She moved up to take my left hand.

Megan must have come back into the room because suddenly, she was beside me, holding my right hand. “Shh, sh, shhh,” she soothed.

The exam may have continued. I think it did with me lying on the table, feet in the stirrups, legs spread open. I had never felt so vulnerable, not even when carrying a handoff into the line of scrimmage while surrounded by looming defenders twice my size.

*

The world hummed and buzzed, continuing to turn on its axis, I suppose. I eventually ended up sitting in another office chair, Megan standing beside me, still holding my hand while the doctor droned on, making her report on my impossible condition.

“Other than your rather masculine musculature and evidently immature male skeleton, Miss Hunter, you appear to be a healthy young woman,” she said. “Of course, we’ll need to see the lab work, do an ultrasound on Monday. I’m especially curious to see your hormones. We could order x-rays, that lab is open on the weekend, but that wouldn’t really tell us anything we don’t know. Soft tissues don’t show up on x-rays.”

She paused. “And I don’t like x-rays used on healthy young women of child-bearing age.” Even though that was said in almost an aside, it struck me like an icicle down the back of my shirt.

She turned to shuffle papers on the counter beside her before picking out one paper to examine. Then she turned back to me and opened her mouth.

But I didn’t want to hear anymore of what she might have to say. “Change me back,” I said. I felt Megan squeeze my hand. “Just change me back. Give me back my…my dick, my balls.”

Dr. Verre glanced at Granny. “That’s…,” she began. The older woman interrupted. “We can’t, child,” she said simply.

I took in all three of them with a glare. Megan had told me they were a family of witches, so they must have had something to do with a transformation that couldn’t be explained by science. “You must be able to,” I insisted. “You changed me in the first place!”

All three of them shook their heads!

“We wouldn’t have the first idea of how to do that,” Granny explained in her soft accent. “Our magic is just in finding out things about the world and helping people find out things about themselves. It’s more like psychology than sorcery.”

My face twisted around my grief and anger. I wanted to lash out and hurt these women. Even Megan, who was still by my side, stroking my back and murmuring to me. “Petey,” she said several times, just my name. “Petey. Petey.”

I shook my head, looking down at my lap. Sometime during that period, I had changed back into my street clothes, though I didn’t remember it. The way my pants fit now felt strange. “I have to go,” I said.

“Go where?” Megan asked.

“Team meeting,” I reminded her.

She frowned. “I thought that was at two?”

I guess she hadn’t forgotten. “It’s after noon. I should let my parents know I survived the party last night.” Did I? Maybe not.

“Are you…? Will you…? Should I…?”

I shook my head again. “Hell, no. I’m not telling anyone I don’t have to. I’ll be okay, and no, I don’t think you should go with me.” I glared at her—unfairly, sure, but life was unfair, and didn’t I know it?

She tried not to show that she felt hurt by my rejection, nodding with her lips in a tight line. I didn’t even consider that I was more or less stranding her at the hospital, and she didn’t bring it up.

Dr. Verre regarded me. “We can’t do anything for you, Miss Hunter. But we wish you well. As long as I can keep you off the books, I’ll offer you medical help.”

Granny looked as if she were going to say something, glanced at Dr. Verre, then at Megan and nodded. I didn’t understand that exchange but also didn’t care so much.

“I’m out of here,” I said and turned to leave. I’d had about as much as I could stand of being called ‘Miss Hunter,’ anyway. I might have screamed at them to stop that but I didn’t know if I could raise my voice without breaking into more tears.

Megan took my arm, but I shook her off. “I need some time alone,” I said, trying to sound harsh, but my voice almost broke. She looked hurt, and I had an unkind thought: it served her fine, and I didn’t care.

Of course, I did care, but she nodded and didn’t try to talk me out of excluding her. “Do you want me to meet you at the Barn?” she asked, meaning Barn o’ Pizza, where the after-game team meetings were held on Saturdays. I shrugged, not trusting my voice to speak.

*

I got out of there and found myself on the road to the Mogollon Rim, which meant I had driven right through town and made a right turn onto the highway in the middle of downtown without remembering any of it. My eyes burned, and my teeth were clenched.

I checked my speed. Nothing excessive, but I was coming up on the limits of Zane City with their notorious speed trap, so I slowed down. I was already half an hour out of Friendly—what had I been doing, where did I think I was going? I took four turns at the first opportunity and headed back toward Friendly.

I tried to wipe my eyes, and I coughed up some of the stuff you get in your throat when you’ve been crying. I should have stopped and used tissues, but I didn’t, spitting phlegm and mucus into a paper cup that had been in the console.

I realized I was heading home when I turned off the highway on Manzanita Drive. It wasn’t my usual way home, but I’d been starting from Zane instead of the school or Jake’s or any of my other usual haunts. There was no direct route home, anyway, since my parents’ house was in the middle of the twisty streets of the Timber Heights neighborhood.

What was I going to tell my folks? I did stop the car then, pulling over to park beside one of the little wooded areas that dotted Friendly. I sat in the car with the windows open and tried to think. I didn’t want anyone to know what had happened to me because—because it might reverse itself as suddenly and with as little reason as it happened in the first place.

People just don’t suddenly change their sex with no surgery or chemicals or anything. It couldn’t happen, but it had. Science couldn’t possibly explain something like it, but the only people I knew of with any claim to doing magic denied responsibility.

I sighed. I didn’t feel like a girl, except when my lip trembled like it was doing a lot lately. I’d never cried so much in my life, not at one time, and not even added all together for as long as I could remember. Four years ago, my grandmother and my dog had both died the week before Christmas, and I had hardly cried at all.

I’d been sad, and I had grieved for Grandma Hunter and for Piffle, a rat terrier we’d had all my life. The pain had been like a stone in my chest, it hurt, but I didn’t remember crying except at the funeral for Grandma or even in my room alone where no one could see me. Now I cried. I wept for myself.

I thumped the steering wheel with the flat of my hand and screamed in fear and anguish. “This isn’t happening. This can’t be happening!” Then “Why me! Why did this happen to me? Did Megan do something to me?”

The blast of rage I felt just then left me shaky and disoriented. I didn’t think I’d ever felt that mad about something. Was I losing my mind, too? “God,” I whispered, “don’t let me turn into some kind of monster over this.”

I’ve never been a praying person. I’m not sure I believe in prayer as an effective way to communicate with a Supreme Being. I believe in God, but I’m not sure I believe in any religion’s ideas of what God is like. It seems to me that anyone big enough to keep the galaxies turning would not be concerned with my small problems.

And right then and there, I started to feel better. I sniffled and cried for several more minutes, snot running down my face, and all the tissue and handkerchiefs in the car got soaked. Even my shirt was wet and snotty. I was still upset—it was so unfair—but I was eighteen, old enough to know that life is not fair and never has been.

When I stopped blubbering, I sat quietly in the car and watched the blue jays squabble with a squirrel. I could actually smile at the birds. “Okay,” I said aloud, “I’m going to live, so I have to deal with this.” Counting on being able to change back didn’t seem to be wise, since Megan’s family denied that they could do it, and who else did I know that had any connection to magic?

I sighed, decided I was thirsty, started the car up and drifted back toward the highway. I drove around the block, through Taco King, got an order of fries and a cup of water and made my way back to where I had parked before.

Am I still a football player, I wondered? Well, as long as no one finds out…. But could I really keep it a secret? This was important because football was part of my plan to go to college. I didn’t have any delusions that I would ever play in the NFL, and certainly not now, but some little college somewhere might be delighted to have a running back like me.

But now? Maybe not. Probably not. Damn.

Because it wasn’t just me, Jake was kind of counting on a football scholarship, too. And he was good enough, he could even aim higher like maybe a Division I school. But he needed the kind of visibility that our winning, or at least placing in the state competition would give us.

We did it last year, and this year, Jake was starting quarterback. If we could win our conference, we could go on to the state tourney again. Things got complicated there. We’d been promoted to Division 4 this year which meant we could qualify to play against the big-school teams in what was called the Open Division. We were all excited about that.

But if we could…it might give several of us on the team a shot at getting scholarships, not just Jake and me. We wouldn’t have to win the tournament, just making it past the first round might be good enough—but it didn’t hurt to dream.

I counted them up. We had six more games in Northern League play, then four more in the tournament to be state champions. I grinned. We’d already won two games in League; ten more couldn’t be that hard. Would they let a girl play football? If I never changed back, that is.

But what if I didn’t tell anyone?

I pulled the mirror around so I could look at my face. I didn’t look any different. Same dark hair, same blue eyes, same slight cleft in my chin, and I still had the sharp cheekbones that made me look more Indian than I really was. I felt of my bicep; I still seemed to have my muscles, though I’ve never been a giant of a guy like Jake.

I didn’t see any reason why I couldn’t still play football if no one found out—besides Jake, Megan, Joanna, Dr. Verre and Granny, all of whom already knew. That might be too many people. Especially Joanna.

Wait, wait. All five of those people had seen the proof. Would anyone else believe such a thing without seeing it for themselves? I didn’t think so.

I still wasn’t sure I believed it myself.

“They're not going to let you play football!" he exclaimed.

I decided that I didn’t dare let anyone find out about my condition. I couldn’t even tell my parents and for sure not my sisters. Jordan was fourteen, and in high school this year, Molly was only eleven, but they both had the biggest mouths in town. They told their girlfriends everything.

I sighed again. I would have to make sure that Megan and Jake at least told no one else. And I should get home and check in with Mom before I went to the team meeting.

I cranked the car up and readjusted my mirrors, then pulled out into the non-existent traffic and started into the maze of crooked streets that led home. I could do this.

Dad would be at work this weekend, selling trucks at Friendly Ford, so I wouldn’t have to face him until the evening.

Bigger problem but not as immediate; how would I handle the locker room on Monday? If Jake would cover for me, I could probably deal with that, too. Maybe I had too much optimism, but it was better than sitting around, crying my eyes out. I pulled my car around the house onto the wide backlot we owned. Hardly anyone in this part of Friendly had a lawn with grass or anything, so people just parked wherever.

And right there beside my house sat Jake’s nearly new, red F-150 pickup truck. I felt a twinge of envy every time I saw the thing. My dad sold them, and I didn’t have one. I had to make do with the six-year-old station wagon Mom used to drive.

But I hurried toward the house, hoping that Jake hadn’t told Mom that her only son had had a terrible accident. Well, it sure wasn’t on purpose!I didn't make it into the house because my littlest sister, Molly, waved at me from a window and pointed toward the backyard. I spotted Jake sitting on one of the wooden benches near the barbecue pit. He looked up when I came around his truck.

"You get banished to the backyard for uncivilized behavior, again," I joked. It kind of hurt to talk, but I pushed my way through, hoping Jake could not hear the strain in my voice.

He stood, smiling vaguely. "I just told them to send you out here where we could talk." Jake is a big guy, six-three at least. "You okay?" he asked.

I felt my lip try to twist, so I just nodded. Afraid to speak. I looked past him, through the ponderosa pines toward the blue edge of the Mogollon Rim in the distance.

"Did you see a doctor?"

I could hear his concern, and it nearly broke me. I nodded again. My throat still felt tight, so I swallowed a couple of times.

Jake had a strange expression. "Well, jeez, Petey. What did he say?" He wasn't glaring at me, but it wasn't just a frown, either.

"She," I managed. "The doctor was a she. Dr. Verre." I coughed, and the tightness in my throat eased a bit. This was Jake, and we had been friends since pre-school.

Jake made a motion like waving flies away from his face. He seemed on the edge of exasperation. "What did she say, Petey?"

I tried to smile. "I'm fine. She says I'm fine." It sounded like a lie.

Jake blinked. "Oh, it's back? What did it get—I dunno—sucked up inside you or something? Huh?" He grinned.

I don't know what my face looked like, painful, maybe, but Jake's expression changed to one of horror. "Pete…?"

"No—I'm—it's gone, Jake. My insides have changed, too." I guess I'd cried myself out because no tears came.

"What the fuck, Petey, what the fuck?" Somehow the distance between us had disappeared. Jake stood right in front of me, within arms reach.

I couldn't stand for him to be so close, so I turned away and took two steps, but I heard him follow me.

"Pete?" he said again, but I didn't turn around and just shook my head.

"I was worried about you, guy," he said. "Afraid that, uh, you might do something."

"Like what?" I asked, almost choking.

"Like hurt yourself or something?"

"Huh?" I wasn't looking at him.

Neither of us said anything for a bit while I realized what he meant. I laughed, and a sour taste filled my mouth. "I'm not going to kill myself, Jake. We've got too many football games to win."

"Huh?" Jake's expression changed. He looked astonished. "You want to keep playing football?"

"Sure," I said. "We've got to win our league, then the division tourney. This year, we take it all!" The optimism sounded hollow.

"I—you—They're not going to let you play football!" he exclaimed.

"Why not?" I demanded, turning to face him.

He shook his head. "Petey, you're a girl now. Girls don't play football!"

"Do I look like a girl?"

He blinked. "You look like you've always looked," he admitted.

"Then why can't I play football?"

He scowled. "Petey, they won't let you play! They don't let girls play football!"

"One: oh, yes, they do! And Two: how they gonna know if no one tells them?" I tried to look mean, which wasn't easy. Jake was my best friend, and part of me still wanted to cry. "You ain't gonna tell them, are you, Jake?”

He threw up his hands. "You're talking about that girl in L.A. that's a kicker! But you ain't a kicker, and this ain't L.A." He took a breath, "And how would you even keep it a secret? I mean, locker rooms and showers and—and the team doctor?"

I stuck out my chin. "You're going to help me!"

"Me?" Jake protested.

"You know, Joanna knows, Megan knows, her aunt and her granny know, and that's it. No one else is gonna know!" I had to make this stick. "You didn't tell Mom or my sisters, did you?"

"No—you—huh?" he said. "You're not gonna tell your folks?"

I shook my head. "It just happened, without a reason. It could unhappen, without a reason. Why complicate my life if…if…." I couldn't stop it—I was going to cry.

So I ran away.

*

I ran toward the treehouse Jake and I had built, with Dad's help, back when we were nine. It was barely six feet off the ground, a square platform built around a Douglas fir with springs and inner tubes holding the construction away from the living tree, one of only six of the slender firs on our ponderosa-heavy property.

I pulled myself up using the hemp rope we left dangling for just that reason, then turned to sit on the platform, letting my legs dangle. I didn't try to crawl into the 'doghouse' we had built up there. Just six by four feet and three feet high, it had been big enough for both of our sleeping bags when we'd been younger.

I could still fit inside, but now Jake was too big to be comfortable. I wiped my eyes with the heels of my hands while Jake caught up. "I bet I'm still the fastest runner in the senior class in the forty-yard sprint. Heck, I may even be faster than before."

"Huh?" he said, stepping carefully around a sticker bush.

I just looked at him sadly, not mentioning that I no longer had things down there to get in my way while running. But running had felt good, and I knew for sure that I wasn't any slower than I had been. "I'm the fastest running back in the league," I reminded him.

"You're the smallest, too," he noted. "You could get hurt."

I scowled. "So could you! And they have to catch me to hurt me! You stand there and try to throw the ball and hope nobody gets through the line to take you out!"

He waved that away. "Why do you want to do this?"

"Same reasons as before! Win football games, win the state championship in our division! Uh…." I trailed off. My other two reasons, frequently discussed around coke and pizza, were a possible scholarship and getting girls.

Jake nodded, peering up at me. "Okay, let's do this," he said. "Make room."

I scooted to the outer side of the platform, and Jake, who was over six feet tall, put one foot on the trunk of the tree and levered himself up with just his forearms. He turned and settled beside me with his feet dangling, too.

"You're crazy," he commented.

I nodded agreement. "Goes without saying."

"Because you're a girl now? No, you've always been crazy." His big face was even higher above mine than usual, even though we were both sitting. Most of my height is in my legs.

He looked at me and grinned. "Don't think I don't know how hard you've worked to learn to run and to build muscles. If you could actually catch the ball…."

Sore spot. I retaliated. "If you could just throw it…."

We laughed, and it was almost the same as it had ever been. Jake was the brother I didn’t have.

"Okay," Jake said when we stopped laughing. "You can play football. But if you get hurt, I may have to kill someone. Probably you."

I grinned at him, but it was a peculiar feeling. He was being protective of me, more even than before. And why? Because now I was a girl. Ow. I didn't think I liked that, but at least he'd agreed not to tell my folks or Coach Wilson.

We still had to figure out how to negotiate the locker rooms on Monday.

*

We headed into the house to say hi to my Mom before going to our team meeting at two, but my sisters met us halfway to the house. Jordan, a freshman at our school, had been at the game and looked especially cute today wearing a summery print thing like a knee-length dress, except the bottom half had wide-but-short pant legs instead of a skirt.

Was I going to have to learn what such things were called?

I glared at her on general principles. She was the beauty of the family and knew it. She had waves of red hair and the same blue eyes I had—was almost as tall as me, too. She had more curves than most fourteen-year-olds had, and she made an effort to be sure Jake noticed them.

"Rah! Lions!" she said, shaking imaginary pompoms.

Jake grinned at her, appreciating her enthusiasm.

Molly, the eleven-year-old, bounced around her sister and delivered a tackle-hug to me. "Petey!" she screamed. "Way to kick Buckaroo butt!" Our opponent last night had been the Green Valley Buckaroos.

"Did you go to the game, too?" I asked. Generally, she had no interest in football.

Molly bounced on her toes and squealed again. She had black hair and blue eyes like mine and was already five feet tall. She'd also recently discovered boys, so maybe that increased her interest in sports. "Uh, huh," she nodded. "Mom, too, and we watched you score four touchdowns!"

That made me smile. "It was two touchdowns and two conversions."

"Uh, huh," she agreed, still bouncing. "You guys won 23-0, and Petey, you scored sixteen of those points!"

"Yeah, well, I had help from the rest of the team."

Jake did the congratulatory self-handshake gesture, causing the girls to giggle. Well, not me.

"Pooh," said Molly. "All Jake did was hand you the ball, and you ran with it." Jake rolled his eyes at that.

"Dennis and Jesse blocked for me," I pointed out.

"You had to slow down so they could stay in front," she scoffed, making all of us laugh. Though I was glad Dennis Calumet and Jesse Velasquez were not there to hear my sister disrespect them. They were both big guys and good blockers.

*

We went inside, and Mom gave both Jake and I hugs. I'm barely taller than her, but she had to stand on tiptoe to put her arms around Jake's neck.

She laughed. "Back when you were over here all the time, you two were the same size." Jake's family had moved across town about the time we started middle school, and he got a huge growth spurt.

"Yeah, huh?" Jake agreed, but he looked at me with an odd expression.

"I'd offer you boys some lunch, but you're going to your team meeting soon, right?"

We nodded.

"Can I come, too?" Molly asked.

Jake and I both said no at the same time.

"I want pizza!" Molly protested.

"We'll go to the mall," offered Mom.

"Mall pizza sucks," Molly complained in a tactical error.

Jake and I retreated while Mom delivered a lecture on avoiding vulgar slang. Jordan followed Jake out the side door and I followed her. "Let's go in my truck," he offered. "We still have stuff to talk about."

I made a noise in agreement and headed for the passenger side of his F-150. Jordan followed Jake to the driver's side.

"I take it I'm not invited either," she commented.

"Heck," said Jake. "You'd be worse than Molly. All the guys would be looking at you instead of Coach with his chalk talks."

She giggled, he grinned, and I glared at both of them.

We got underway and waved when irrepressible Molly, still bouncing, joined Jordan in pretending to be cheerleaders. "Go, Lions!" they shouted. “Friendly Pride! Score that pizza!" Molly added in a squeal.

It was less than ten blocks to Pizza Barn, but first, we had to get out of the Timber Heights neighborhood, which involved half a dozen turns. Neither of us said anything for that part of the trip, but when we turned onto Manzanita, I said, "Don't flirt with my sister."

"Hmm," he said.

"She's only fourteen," I added.

"It's not serious, either one of us," he offered. "For Jordan, it's just practice with someone safe."

"Yeah, well, I don't like it."

Jake gave me a look with his head lowered, so his eyes were visible through his bushy blond eyebrows. "Jealous?" he asked.

I hit him in the shoulder with my fist.

"Ow," he said.

"Just don't."

"Okay," he agreed. He pulled into the alley behind the Barn. "Don't flirt with your sister, or don't tease you about hitting like a girl?"

He'd always teased me about that, but now it stuck deep. I waited till he parked, and then I hit him again—a knuckle punch behind the elbow where it would really hurt.

"Ow," he said, mildly. But he rubbed the spot. "You missed the funny bone," he commented.

"Next time," I promised as we climbed down. He laughed.

“I’m all right,” he said. “Though, you know, you don’t hit like a girl.”

As soon as we got out of there, before we reached Lee’s van, I punched him in the upper arm. Maybe a bit harder than I had intended.

He staggered in a half circle. “Ow,” he said, rubbing the spot.

“Don’t ever spring a surprise like that on me again!“ I said, trying to be stern. The expression on Lee’s face made that hard. He looked startled and a bit guilty, like when I caught Wug chewing on some mail one day. And it wasn’t our mail!

“S-sorry,” he stammered. “Mom told me not to warn you. I thought it was kind of chickenshit, and I really wanted to say something.”

I rolled my eyes at him, but I knew for a fact that Mrs. Frick could be very persuasive. It was hard to resist her plans.

Lee opened the passenger door of his van for me and asked. “How mad are you?”

I held my hand up, thumb and index about an inch apart. Then when I saw him start to grin, I widened the gap.

He laughed as I climbed into the seat, and he stood there for a moment, grinning at me like a goof, before closing the door and starting around to the driver’s side.

I debated whether I should lean over and lock the door before he reached it, but he already had his keys in his hand, so I concentrated on not grinning myself and wondering if I really was as mad at him as I had every right to be.

He clambered into his seat with only a little awkwardness because of his leg.

I guess I may have looked concerned, because he paused in the ritual of starting the van to look at me and smile. “I’m all right,” he said. “Though, you know, you don’t hit like a girl.”

‘I hope not!” I said, my eyes getting a bit wide.

He rubbed the injury, still smiling. “That punch came from your hips, not your shoulder.”

He started the engine while I worked at not blushing… and failed.

“The only other person I’ve seen you punch like that is Jake,” he commented, putting the van in gear to pull through the circular drive back out on the street.

I blinked… because he was right. I did sometimes punch Jake in the shoulder, when he was being obtuse or thoughtless. Usually, hard enough to make him say, “Ow,” too. Why did thinking about that make me want to giggle?

Lee looked both ways before pulling out, then turned left to work his way out of the maze of country club streets around the golf course and lake, back toward the highway. He looked over at me when he finished the turn and said, “I thought maybe you were announcing that you wanted me for your boyfriend now.”

I frowned at him. “Next time, I’ll punch you in the ear!” I warned.

He laughed.

“I’m serious,” I said. “Punching people is not communication. That’s not how it works.”

He looked away, watching the road, but I could see the corner of his grin. “It isn’t?” he asked, as innocent as a four-year-old with a chocolate milk mustache.

“No, it’s not,” I insisted.

“You stopped punching Jake when you started dating Megan,” he pointed out.

I swallowed a gasp and started watching the road myself. Had everyone known Megan and I were dating? Well, I guess so. We hadn’t tried to hide it. Did everyone think we were lesbians now?

Wait….
“You didn’t punch Megan in the arm, did you?” Lee asked, as if it were a totally natural question.

“Well, no,” I admitted. “Uh, she punched me.” Well, she had, once or twice over the last few months. But not in the last two weeks….

“But you two aren’t together anymore?”

“No,” I said, my voice feeling small.

Lee reached across the center console and took my hand in his. He squeezed gently, and I guess I squeezed back. “And now, you’ve punched me. Tag, I’m it.”

I looked at him through my eyelashes. “You’re a big goof,” I announced.

“But, apparently,” he said with a goofy grin, “I’m your goof, if you want me to be.”

“It’s only one date to go to the movies,” I protested. Oh, shit, it was a date, wasn’t it?

“For now,” said Lee. “It’s enough for now.”

“Better be,” I muttered. “Or you will be getting one upside your ear.”

He laughed out loud, and I felt him squeeze my hand.

I squeezed back just to keep from giggling. “You’re supposed to be shy!” I complained.

“That? Oh, that’s just an act,” he said.

I wanted to punch him again, but he was driving.

*

We meandered off the highland around the artificial lake down to the highway, and Lee surprised me by turning left.

“Where the heck are we going?” I asked after grabbing the handhold above the window when the van leaned in the opposite direction to the one I expected. “The drive-in is north of town.”

“We’d be way too early. The feature doesn’t start until after sundown,” he pointed out. “And Mom gave us a gift certificate to The Roosevelt.”

“Holy shit,” I said, caught by surprise. The Roosevelt Inn was a fancy boutique hotel and restaurant built as a lodge for some president, I forget which one. It was above another man-made lake named after the same guy, and I had almost driven out to it just this morning, U-turning around right at the crossroad while I was wasting time trying to think. Lost cause.

“They have better things on the menu,” Lee said, proving my point.

“Huh?” I almost yelped. “Wait, wait! That’s a fancy place, and I’m just wearing denim jeans!”

Lee laughed. “You wanna go home and change first? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in a skirt.”

“You haven’t!” I assured him.

“Eighth-grade graduation?” he suggested. “All the girls wore their prettiest dresses then.”

“Not me,” I informed him— but inwardly I wondered. Everyone seemed to have memories of me as a girl. And I couldn’t be sure anymore. What happened to reality? I think I missed my stop.

“But don’t worry,” Lee said. “It’s an old hunting lodge. They don’t expect people to be dressed up.”

“Oh,” I said. I looked out the windows as we climbed out of Star Valley, with its sort of open forest scattered amid stretches of desert scrub and pastures. The road to Roosevelt Lake was more heavily wooded, and the sweet scent of sugar pine and spicy juniper came in through the vents.

Not much traffic on a mid-afternoon Sunday, so we reached the turnoff to the hotel parking lot before I had even tried to reconcile my feelings about Lee taking me to an expensive dinner… even if it was on his mother’s dime.

Lee ignored the valet offering to park the van and drove directly to the handicapped spaces in front of the restaurant. He pulled into a spot and turned off the engine, but before getting out, he faced me. “I’m sorry about piling another surprise on you like this. I should have asked….” He sort of trailed off, looking embarrassed.

I patted his wrist. “It’s okay. Believe me, I’ve had much worse surprises.” I even laughed.

Reassured, Lee got out and started round the van, but one of the hotel people was already opening my door and offering to help me down. “Thank you,” I told the valet, who gave me a beaming, if slightly fatuous smile.

“Welcome to the Roosevelt, miss,” he enthused before handing my fingers off to Lee, coming around the front of the van.

I have no idea what expression I was showing, but Lee laughed when I glanced a bit suspiciously at the valet’s back.

The massive timbers of the hotel and restaurant loomed above us and coarse cinder paving crunched under our feet when we advanced toward the entrance. “I’m kind of glad I am wearing sneakers,” I commented.

Lee laughed again. “I guess I’ve never seen you in high heels, either?”

“Uh, no,” I agreed, though I had been thinking about trying to walk across that stuff in football shoes. You’d get the sizable chunks stuck in your cleats.

The October afternoon had turned a bit cool, and the warmth coming out of the restaurant’s huge open doors felt pleasant, besides carrying the smells of charred meat, roasted potatoes and wine. We wouldn’t be having any of the last since we were both only eighteen, but it did add to the richness of the aroma.

“I’ve never eaten here,” I remarked to Lee while we waited at the reservations desk. Somehow, we were still holding hands.

“I don’t eat here a lot,” Lee admitted. “But it’s kind of where Mom takes out-of-town visitors for a bit of swank.”

God help me; I don’t know why I giggled at that. I know Lee saw me blushing because he grinned.

A greeter came to lead us to a small two-person table almost directly under a set of elk antlers mounted on the wall. Then Lee moved quickly to hold my chair while I sat, possibly frustrating the greeter, who looked disappointed at having missed the opportunity.

I wondered what that was about as Lee took his own seat and beamed at me. I suppressed another invitation to giggle at the odd interchange. At least we’re not holding hands anymore.

Then I looked up and saw Lee, his blond hair shining in a stray beam of sunlight, contrasting with the deep browns and blacks of wood and hunting gear displayed on the wall behind him.

Had he always been so handsome?

---

Read ahead, Pete -55- on Patreon now

I wasn’t just one of the guys anymore.

The parking lot was nearly full at the Pizza Barn, meaning most of our teammates were already inside. Coach Wilson would have the back room all set up for us with pizzas, chicken, pitchers of soda, and movies—the last item supplied by Leland Frick, our team cinematographer.

Lee would have footage for us to watch: some of the game last night and some from colleges and pros that showed something that Coach wanted us to learn. Frick was a tall, weedy, uncoordinated, glasses-wearing geek but he was part of why we were going to the play-offs again this year.

We really did appreciate him and to prove it, we gave him just as much grief as the we did all the players who suited up and played on the field. “Four-eyes” and “Nerd” were some of the nicknames he got called. It evened out: Jake was “Magilla” and I was “Nubbin”. Lee was a Lion and would get a letter for it, same as the rest of the team. Friendly Pride, rah.

The money for these parties came from fundraisers by the school alumni association, and contributions by parents of team members, mostly. It was considered fun, team-building activity, and Pizza Barn, for their part, provided free sodas and breadsticks.

I usually enjoyed these meetings, but with what had happened to me, I felt fraudulent and out of place, as if everyone in the room could look at me and know I didn’t belong. That’s ridiculous, I told myself. You don’t look any different with your clothes on. But I was acutely aware of my missing parts.

“Coach is going to want us up front,” Jake said beside me.

I blushed because I had been thinking about being naked. I resisted more cringing as I followed him toward the long table set crossways to the others. This back room was packed with nearly forty players, coaches, and assistants like Lee, who was setting up his projector on the smaller table in the middle of the room.

Coach Wilson beamed at us, gesturing that we join him in the front of the room, just like Jake had suggested he would. I took a firm grasp on my nerves and made my way through the noise and confusion to sit on the end of the outer bench while Jake sat opposite me, next to our coach.

We collected a lot of congratulations on our way since Jake had something to do with every point scored and I had carried the ball over the goal line four times. But something else impressed itself on me amid the backslaps and “Attaboys.” I was the third or fourth shortest person in the room and the shortest starting player.

And the only girl, even if only Jake and I knew that.

I think it was the fug of budding testosterone in the room that brought me to that admission. My nose noticed a difference, I hadn’t expected that. One of these things is not like the others. I wasn’t one of the guys anymore. Only Jake knew, and I couldn’t let anyone else find out, or they wouldn’t let me play football any more.

And Lee’s movies proved something, something I already knew. I needed to be on the team for us to keep winning. The films showed that I carried the ball eleven times, four times across the goal and three times for a first down and four more times for two to seven yards gained. Eight of those carries started with a handoff from Jake, two were from him lateraling and I picked up one loose ball while playing defense.

The Buckaroos were sad competition at almost every position, but we never lost yardage on a play where I touched the ball.

“I guess we know who takes the MVP cup home this week,” said Coach Wilson and the roar of “PEE-EET-EE” from my teammates almost knocked me down. The cup was a take-home-trophy for the player voted that week’s most valuable.

It embarrassed me so much that when I tried to laugh it off while pointing at Jake that I broke into what could only be described as giggles. No one seemed to notice and most of the guys were just laughing, too.

“Nubbin gets the cup, Nubbin gets the cup!” somebody chanted, and there were calls for a totally unnecessary speech. No one made speeches at these things.

I stuffed another slice of pizza in my face to cover my embarrassment. I’d already had three pieces and wasn’t really hungry for more. Normally, I would eat six or eight slices, nearly half a large pizza (they cut them narrow for this kind of backroom party). But I was full and didn’t really want anymore.

I didn’t drink as much soda as I normally did either, but enough that I needed to get rid of some of it. I slid off the end of the bench and I’d already pushed through the door labeled Men before I thought about it. I made for a stall in the back while several guys were doing their business at the urinals. My face felt like it was burning but no one looked at me.

I latched the stall door and tried to ignore the gaps at bottoms and sides. I pulled my pants down and sat to do my business, but nothing was happening. Oh my God, I thought, I’ve forgotten how to pee. It was—different. I couldn’t articulate how it was different, it just was. I squeezed and released internal muscles to try to start the flow but nothing was happening.

No one noticed, no one commented, no one could see my dilemma. Except—my feet were pointed the wrong direction, most likely visible under the door. Why don’t bathroom stall doors and walls go all the way to the floor?

I knew I had locked the stall but I kept expecting someone to burst in and shout, “Petey’s got a pussy instead of a dick!” It was…excruciating, and the tension was surely responsible for me not being able to locate the flood gates.

I had pissed before when I first woke up, but then I hadn’t thought about it, I just did it. The question now was how? To distract myself, I took a big wad of toilet paper to have ready for patting myself dry. Another cringeworthy necessity.

I had already spent longer than necessary in the stall, I guess hoping that if anyone wondered why, they might think I had to go number two. That would explain the toilet paper sounds, too.

But a public bathroom is a noisy place, what with the tile and sounds of running water and feet and doors and, in this case, one of those hand-dryer blowers. Maybe no one had noticed any strange sounds.

I heard people leaving, and after a bit, it got quiet. I was thinking I needed to get out of there, and maybe find somewhere else to pee, when a pair of shoes stopped in front of my stall.

I could see them under the door, big lace-up Nikes. Before I could worry about that, the knock on the door scared me again. “Pete?” a voice called softly. Jake. “Pete, you in there?”

“Yeah,” I said. Then I let go of something inside me in relief and the sound of water hitting the bowl made me wince. No guy made a sound like that when pissing.

“Jesus, Pete,” said Jake. He’d noticed too.

“I can’t help it,” I whimpered. “It all comes out at once!”

“Jesus, Pete,” he repeated. “It sounded just like a girl pissing.”

“Yeah, well,” I muttered. I would not say it, and it was all I could do to not cry. I used my wad of tissue to dry my eyes and then the damp curls between my legs. It felt weird but it worked. I hadn’t been able to piss until I knew it was just Jake and I in the bathroom. How messed up was that?

He moved away from the stall door while I pulled up my shorts and pants, and when I opened the door, I saw him standing by the sinks.

“This isn’t going to work,” he said.

I washed my hands, staring at my face in the mirror. Did I look like I had been crying?

“You’ve been crying,” said Jake, answering that question.

“Shut up,” I said. “It has to work. We’re going to win the league then go to the state tourney and win our division. Someone will have to give you a scholarship then!”

“I—? You—? Is that what this is about?”

I nodded. “I can’t let you or the team down. I’m the best running back in the league and I bet I’m the best in our division.”

“You were,” he said bluntly. “Hell, you might have been the best in the state. Coach says he’s never seen a halfback with your combination of speed, nerve and smarts.”

I rubbed my forehead with both hands, like trying to scrub away thoughts.

“But since this morning…,” Jake continued.

“Shut up,” I said. “I can still do it.”

Jake shook his head. “I just don’t want to see you get hurt….”

“I’ve had a charmed life,” I said. “I’ve never had anything worse than bruises or a pulled muscle. I know how to take a hit, how to fall. I won’t get hurt.”

“Dammit! Listen to me!” he said, frustration in his voice peaking, and, just to prove it, he punched the chromed metal of the towel dispenser built into the wall. The flimsy panel bent and the dispenser exploded, scattering towels all over the bathroom.

“Now look what you’ve done!” I accused him. But Jake was kneeling on the floor, holding his right hand in his left and wincing in pain.

“I may have broken something,” he said calmly.

*

Telling Coach was hard. He didn’t rant or scream, but he did make us feel like idiots, just by his look of disappointment. Then he hustled us into his car and headed to the hospital where I had just had an appointment with a gynecologist.

I didn’t mention that, of course, but heading back to the hospital made me wince. What if someone recognized me and commented? I tried to back out of going along, but Jake had my right hand in his left and I couldn’t abandon him.

It didn’t make sense that I was more worried about getting recognized than the possibility that Jake had broken his throwing hand. But the truth was, I did worry to the point of feeling sick at my stomach from the combination of Jake maybe being seriously injured, and my secret being found out.

It didn’t help when I spotted Dr. Verre in the hallway. She nodded at me but didn’t speak, and I retreated back to the plastic chairs in the emergency room waiting area while they took Jake in for x-rays on his hand. Time had a weird jerky quality, it seemed to drag then take sudden jumps.

Jake’s mom showed up and it got even more confusing after that. I avoided Mrs. Fremont, knowing she would try to pump me about Jake. Let her talk to the hospital staff, they got paid for it. If I said anything to her, she’d want to know why Jake got hurt. And I might cry.

Our story to Coach, that we had just been clowning around and Jake had hit the towel dispenser harder than he intended wouldn’t fly with Jake’s mom. She’d suss out a lie and demand the whole story. I had no idea how Jake was going to handle talking to her.

I had to get out of there. My car was at home. Jake’s truck was at the Pizza Barn. I supposed we would straighten that out when all was taken care of, but I was doubly surprised when Megan landed in the chair next to me. “Petey,” she said. “Aunt Lou says you didn’t make an appointment for your ultrasound.”

I waved vaguely at her. Another thing I didn’t want to deal with.

“And I think you just forgot that you left me here without a ride,” she accused.

“Sorry,” I said. “Can’t your aunt give you a ride?”

“Yeah, but she’ll be here till six or seven.” She shook her head in annoyance. “You were thinking of other things,” she allowed. “But I made your appointment for you with the ultrasound department. Two p.m. Tuesday for a gynecological exam.”

“Jeez!” I winced, looking around. “Don’t say that where anyone can hear you!”

“You’re not going to be able to keep it secret forever, Petey,” she warned me. “People will find out.”

“Not if no one tells them,” I insisted. “And I’ve got football practice.”

She tilted her head and looked at me. “You know you’ve got female hormones now?”

“Ah….”

“Aunt Lou says, you were barely into puberty as a boy, so now you get to do….”

“Shut up! Jeez, Megan, shut up!”

She rolled her eyes then leaned in closer to me and whispered. “You’re probably going to have your period in two weeks or so.”

“Gah!” I kept it quiet, too, but it was a near thing.

“And your shape will start changing.”

“No! No, it won’t!”

She made a face. “Well, maybe it won’t,” she admitted. “This whole thing is so weird, who knows what might happen?”

That didn’t really relieve the anxiety she had caused, and I scowled back at her. I imagined my shape changing, by which I assumed she meant I would grow breasts. “How…how fast does that happen? If it happens?”

“It normally takes months,” she said, trying to be reassuring. “Years, even. Most girls start puberty at around twelve and have most of it done by fourteen or fifteen.”

Months. Maybe nothing would show before the end of football season. Maybe it would all spontaneously reverse itself. When you don’t know anything, everything is a worry.

We had forgotten to continue whispering but no one seemed to notice. I reached out and took Megan’s hand and she gave me a little squeeze. I squeezed back. It helped.

I had a mental image I was trying to shake, of my fourteen-year-old sister who had already developed an attention-grabbing figure, but with my black hair instead of her red.

I know perfectly well what's wrong with me.

Turned out Jake had only bruised his hand, not broken or sprained anything, but it was a nasty bruise. Whether he would be able to quarterback next Friday depended on how fast he healed.

Coach was pissed, but confined his anger to making sure Jake understood what was expected of him. "You gotta be religious, coming back from something like this. I mean, religious about following the doctor's instructions and doing your therapy."

He spared a glare or three for me since I had been alone with Jake in the bathroom when the injury happened. Jake's story was that he had been clowning around and had hit the towel machine harder than he intended. That might even be true, but he gave no part to me in the accident.

"Don't say a word," he ordered me in a whisper before the interrogations began. "I'll take all the blame. I was trying to get your attention, and I did something stupid."

Did I agree with that? I decided to shake my head. Jake was my best friend and the reason I was mostly going to be trying to continue playing football after what happened.

We finally filtered out of the hospital, making our way through a crowded waiting area. There were too many of us anyway, about half the team, and the staff pushed us toward the doors. "We need our Emergency Room back," they said.

Someone had thought to move the cars parked at the Pizza Barn by relay to the hospital parking lot. Jake, Megan and I met at his big red Ford pick-up. Megan and I were holding hands as Jake retrieved his keys from Lee Frick, who had organized the relocation of vehicles.

“Dude,” said Lee as he handed over the keys.

“Thanks, dude,” Jake responded. Megan giggled and I had to smile, squeezing her hand.

Jake's right hand was wrapped in bandages, then in a cold pack, and as an outer layer, a taped-on plastic bag to catch liquids. "Pete," he said. "You wanna drive?" I nodded, and he handed me the keys. He climbed in on the passenger's side, and Megan squeezed in next to him, between us.

“Dude,” she whispered to me as I slid in beside her.

The plan was to drop Megan at my house to pick up my car and follow along to Jake's. After that, I could take her home in my vehicle and finally end up back home myself. Complicated, but doable.

Jake nixed that idea. "Just take me home," he said. "You can keep my truck at your place. It'll keep me from trying to drive it. I'll call you to bring it to me when I think I can drive." He held his bandaged hand up and glared at it.

"If it's just a bruise," Megan commented, "it might be all right in two or three days." Her family included doctors and nurses, and maybe she was used to talking about injuries and healing.

Jake's voice was tight and strained. "I think I'm going to miss this Friday at least."

"You don't know," I offered. "No point in getting all worked up yet."

"Yeah," Jake said, but not like he meant it. He turned to me and his mouth twisted. "You going to play Friday?" he asked.

"I—yes," I said, keeping my eyes on the road. Jake and Megan both lived on the south side of town. Jake's family had moved almost four years ago. They had lived only a few doors down from my home during most of grade school. Megan lived in Star Valley, which was sort of a wart on the west end of Friendly. I headed for Jake's first.

No one said anything for a minute or two as I negotiated crossing the highway without a traffic light. It wasn't that busy on Saturday afternoon, not like Friday or Sunday night when the Phoenicians would swarm the place in their double-ended galleys on trailers pulled by heavy-duty pick-up trucks on their way to the lakes on the Colorado.

That's a joke 'cause people from Phoenix are called Phoenicians, too, just like the ancient guys from Phoenicia. Not a funny joke, maybe, but one I had heard and told often. I smiled in reflex, thinking about it.

"I guess you're happy?" Jake asked. He waved his bandaged hand. "But I still don't think you should play." His face looked painful, the way his lips twisted.

"I'm going to play," I said stubbornly. "The team will need me even more if you aren't there. The Bulldogs are a lot tougher team than the Buckaroos."

"You could get hurt," Jake said.

I shrugged.

Megan, sitting between us, kept quiet, barely moving her head and eyes as she followed our argument.

Jake appealed to her, "Help me out, Megan. Tell Pete he can't play, now."

Megan's eyebrows shot up. "You think I agree with you?" she scoffed. "I think Pete can do whatever she wants."

I winced at the pronoun.

Jake sulked. "Football is no place for a girl," he finally muttered.

I decided to ignore that. Partly because I kinda sorta agreed with it. But then, I still didn't think of myself as a girl. I was still a guy—a dude—just a dude with…one of those.

*

We dropped Jake at his house, still sulking, but he came around to the driver's side and offered me a left-handed fist bump. I grinned down at him from the lofty seat of his F-150 and returned it.

"Friendly Pride," he said.

"Rah," I agreed.

His face twisted up. "Win for me Friday, and we go all the way?"

"Damn straight."

"Don't get hurt," he added.

"I won't," I promised.

"Kick some Bulldog ass."

"As of now," I intoned, "they are officially punted."

He grinned, slapped the door of the truck, whispered something and turned away.

I'd heard what he said, and my face turned red. Megan leaned over and asked, "Did he just say he loved you?"

"Yeah, well," I tried to pass it off. "We met in daycare for My Sake." (Private joke, I'm Pete.) "He's the brother I never had."

Megan waited a three-beat. "Do you love him?"

I sniffed. Damn girly nose tears. "'Course I do. He's my b-brother. What do you mean, asking me that?"

"It's okay to love someone who's close to you."

"I-it's not romantic. I'm not gay, and neither is he."

She squeezed my arm.

We were still sitting there for a moment, watching Jake go up to his house. He'd just turned to wave at us when the door opened, and Joanna popped out and grabbed him. We probably should have noticed her car parked at the curb.

I made some sort of noise, and Megan said, "Oops!"

"Oops?" I asked. It seemed an odd thing to say.

"Let's just go," she said.

I put the truck in gear and pulled out into the street, thinking about Megan's reaction. "It's something about Joanna, isn't it?"

She sighed. She was sitting in the middle of the big bench seat but now scooted away from me an inch or so, like she needed distance before she told me something. She sighed again, looking away. "No one tells Joanna what to do, y'know?"

I had a bad feeling about this. "Who did she tell?" I asked.

"The squad," Megan muttered, adding a few choice words of description. "The bitch couldn't wait."

"What?" I wanted to bark and howl, but I kept my voice mild. "The whole cheerleading squad?"

Megan shook her head. "Just the varsity."

So six more people knew my secret. I braked carefully at a four-way stop, following Purple Sage Road east and south where it crossed Jubilee Boulevard. Megan lived in the less affluent part of town. Still Friendly but maybe a little less cheerful. 

In most of the rest of the country, I knew she would be considered black (or African-American) for her Creole heritage. But here in this part of Arizona, she was just brown—like the half of the town is made up of Mexican-Americans, immigrant Mexicans, native Indians of several tribes, Filipinos and a miscellany of others, including a few more black families.

To me, she was just Megan. And she was a Varsity cheerleader, one of eight. Who now all knew about me.

"Fuck," I said.

Megan shrugged. "She told them, but she didn't try to convince them."

"Huh?"

She made a face. "Joanna told it like it was a joke. Like we, you and I, had been fucking so hard that we lost your dick in the bed covers. She called me at the hospital to tell me all about it."

"Oh, jeez." I didn't know what to think.

"It may be a good thing," Megan suggested. "Now it's out there, but in a form no one will believe."

I shook my head. I felt my skin crawl, thinking about the varsity cheerleaders having a laugh at the idea of me losing my junk. My face turned hot, and my stomach fluttered.

I finally settled on a muttered, "Damn it," and tried to let it go.

Megan moved close again and leaned against me. I appreciated that. We drove across town without saying much, stopping only to pick up some broasted chicken at Johnny's for Megan's family dinner since she hadn't been at home to do the cooking.

*

The D'Auguste family lived in one of the mobile home parks on the edge of town with sixty or eighty large coaches parked in among the pines and scrub oak. I dropped Megan off at her door to be met by her mother and younger siblings and an older brother I'd forgotten she had. Travis came out to the truck to say hi and help Megan carry chicken into the house, holding it up out of reach of greedy kids and dogs.

He laughed a big booming chuckle and called to the kids, "Chickie, chickie, chickie, I've got the chicken and maybe you can have some if you're sweet as pie, eh?" The kids protested, the dogs barked, and he laughed even louder. I remembered him being on the varsity when I started high school, but I had no idea where he had been since he graduated.

He looked generally a lot like Megan, with dark skin, hair and eyes, but he had a build like a wrestler with massive shoulders, a wide trunk and arms as big around as my thighs. I stared at him walking away, and Megan noticed.

"Here I am," she said brightly, as if I had been looking for her. She slid out of her seat to the driveway and pulled the rest of the dinner fixings toward her.

"You need help with that?" I asked her, but she shook her head.

"Chacha is distracting the little ones so that I can manage."

"Chacha?" I blinked.

"I couldn't say 'Travis' when I was small, so that's his family nickname. And from high school football for his running style after one of his coaches heard me call him that." She darkened a bit and grinned. "He doesn't know whether he loves it or hates it."

"That's as bad as Nubbin," I commented, smiling and watching him tease his younger sibs with the boxes of chicken. "Where's he been?"

"Playing baseball in the minors," she explained. "He starts college next week, down in Tucson." Then she added, "Petey," as she gathered the bags of salads and biscuits. "Chacha has a girlfriend already."

It took me two beats to get it as she turned away. "Megan!" I yelped.

She laughed, calling softly over her shoulder. "You were looking."

Was I looking? The way she meant that? I felt my face get hot.

Damn it! I was looking!

*

I got the heck out of there and headed for home. I still had Jake's big truck, which I could park at my house, and Jake could come get it when he figured out how to drive it with his right arm bandaged up.

I had a lot of stuff I didn't want to think about, so I tried to work on plans for Friday's game mentally. Without Jake at quarterback, did we really stand a chance against the Winslow Bulldogs? I thought so. Dave Garcia, a lanky junior, was our backup quarterback. I'd have to talk him into giving me the ball as much as possible. 

Dave had a good arm but didn't have the savvy and eye for the field that Jake had developed. He was tall and lean with a blond cowlick and big hands. Nowhere near as good-looking as Jake.

Uh…? Why was I thinking about his looks? My face was hot again….

I passed the turn for the airport and used the stupid roundabout to get on Beeline Highway headed south through the middle of town, a lot faster than the side streets, even though I'd have to head north again to get to my own neighborhood. I made the turns, trying to control my thoughts, but driving didn't take up that much of my brain.

Neither did football, or even imagining last night with Megan. She'd been naked. We had sex…. And I remembered it, but I couldn't quite picture it in my mind. What was wrong with me?

I pulled into the side yard, parking Jake's truck beside my stupid station wagon. Then I sat there, thinking about trying not to think about certain things.

I knew perfectly well what was wrong with me.

We had to find out sometime....

I got through the evening somehow, but it wasn’t easy. My parents and sisters had to be told everything about Jake’s injury and more than once. But I didn’t spill anything about what had happened to me. The longer I could keep that a secret, the better, for my part.

I wasn’t really hungry at dinner, and that triggered a little maternal worry. I might not be as big of an eater as Jake and some of our teammates, but normally, I did put it away. Just for Mom’s sake, I took a second helping of buttered squash. It was from her own garden and tasted like pumpkin, one of my favorite things, actually.

Mollified that I wouldn’t starve to death in front of her eyes, she turned her attention to my sisters’ squabbling. Molly was teasing Jordan about some boy who had been sniffing around, and Jordan offered to stuff Molly into the hollow in the roast chicken. “You’ve always liked stuffing better than dressing,” she cooed.

Which was pretty funny, but I didn’t want to encourage them. Also, I vaguely wondered if I was going to have to talk with this Kyle Penworth. (Molly was calling him Kylie Penisworth and not getting caught out on it by the parents—yet. I felt my face turning red and didn’t call anyone’s attention to it, either. I needed to talk with her, too. Where did she learn the word? Were they teaching that in sixth grade now?)

The girls were sentenced to kitchen duty for their sins while Mom harangued them about their behavior at the table. So Dad and I escaped outside to look at Jake’s big truck, which I had parked under the garage floodlights. Dad sold probably more F-150s than anyone in our corner of the state, and he knew everything about them.

“It’s got excellent reliability and safety ratings and will out-pull anything in its class,” he bragged. Well, anything that could out-pull a fully-loaded F-150 would almost by definition be in a different class. And I noticed he didn’t say anything about gas mileage.

“Sell me one,” I teased.

“What color you want?” he came back.

“Blue,” I said. “That neon blue the Mustangs come in.”

He snorted. It was a sore spot with him that Ford did not offer that blue for pickup trucks without a special order. “Too much truck for a high school punk like you,” he scoffed.

“What about Jake?” I asked.

“Too much truck for his candyass, too,” Dad agreed.

I heard myself giggle at that, and he gave me a funny look, then grinned. “Jake uses it as a chick magnet, doesn’t he?”

I sighed and nodded. And I was stuck driving a mom-mobile.

“Funny thing is, he probably doesn’t need it,” Dad observed. “Big guy like that, handsome, athlete, rich family.” He paused then added, ‘Course, he ain’t the biggest wrench on the wall, comes to brains. Breaking his hand on a towel dispenser.” He grinned at me.

I didn’t say the hand wasn’t broken. I’d mentioned that twice already. I just shrugged and showed a weak grin.

Dad looked thoughtful, staring off in the direction of the Mogollon Rim for a moment, a view that was high on the list of the ten best reasons for living in Friendly. The stars were hard bright diamonds on black velvet, and neither of us said anything for a while.

He shrugged, finally and turned to me before saying, “It is kind of embarrassing, you driving that piece of crap GM station wagon your grandad gave your mother. Maybe I can find something on the used car lot that would suit you better?” He’d apparently been thinking about this very thing.

“Wow! Really?” I couldn’t believe it. I’d been pestering him since I got my license the previous year to let me pick something off the lot, even if it was a beater headed for the salvage yard. I blinked as we both turned back to the bright lights around the driveway.

He nodded. “Tell you what, you win Friday night, with or without Jake, and I’ll find you something.” He looked at me and grinned. “It might even be blue.”

“You’ve got a deal,” I said. “Wow, what an incentive!”

“I didn’t say it would be free. That nickels-worth Chevelle will be your down payment, and I’ll cover monthly payments till graduation. And insurance, I can get it cheaper than you can. But your summers are spoken for till it’s paid off. Okay?”

“Yeah, Dad! Thanks!” I wanted to kiss him, and when I thought that, I almost tripped over my own feet.

“Careful,” Dad said, “there’s a garden hose lying here on the ground, somewhere.”

I settled for grabbing Dad’s right hand with mine and giving him a one-arm hug with my left. He grunted, but he sounded pleased.

“Don’t tell your mother about this deal,” he warned. “She might try to nix the car I’ve got picked out for you.”

“That sounds like it might be a Mustang,” I guessed, feeling hopeful.

“Maybe not, but maybe the next best thing,” he said, cooling my hopes a bit.

We were talking about a used car, so it could be any nameplate at all. The next best thing to a Mustang would have to be something like a Camaro or a Barracuda? I couldn’t guess.

*

We probably watched some television later, but I excused myself with a headache and went to bed early. Our house had three bedrooms and a den, all on the same level as the kitchen, dining and living rooms. Ranchstyle they call it, and the whole thing was shaped like a lopsided capital H.

The big space in the middle of the house was the living room/dining room, with the kitchen off to one side in the front, the girls’ room on the other side.

In the back, the big leg was the master suite for my parents, and the stubby leg held my room and the afterthought of the den. A loft above this branch was used entirely for storage because the two rooms up there were too small for anything else. I guess originally they had been servant quarters when this had been a real ranch house.

Mom and Dad had a full bathroom in their bedroom, and the girls used the one off the front hall. I had to go through the den to get to my 3/4 bath, but at least I had one to myself. I intended to take a long hot shower while everyone else watched some Halloween-themed movie in the front room.

The fake holiday itself would be around at the end of the month, but even Molly was getting too old for trick-or-treat. I got out clean underwear and a pair of pajama bottoms and laid them across my bed. Most of my bath stuff was already in the bathroom since I didn’t have to share unless we had guests who would be sleeping over.

I added a pair of socks to the pile on the bed before realizing I had been dithering, delaying going down the hall to take my bath. Megan and I had had tentative plans for Saturday night, but somehow they had gotten laid aside in the confusion of Jake’s injury.

My relationship with my girlfriend had fundamentally changed, I realized. A week ago, nothing short of fire, flood or famine would have kept us from getting together. Well, famine probably wouldn’t have worked. We’d just go out for burgers.

I saw myself in the mirror over the dresser, and I wasn’t smiling.

I sat on the bed, ignoring the clothes I had laid out, and picked up my phone. It was an extension of the house phone. I didn’t have a line of my own. The girls had one in their room because otherwise, they would monopolize the family line.

But I didn’t need to think about Megan’s number to dial it. She answered in the middle of the second ring. (She had her own line, too.) “Pete, Pete, Petey,” she said after we traded hellos.

“You up for a drive?”

“Better bet the barn on it,” she said.

“See you in twenty,” I promised.

I hadn’t gotten undressed yet, so I just grabbed my jacket and boots and stuck my head into the living room to tell the folks I was leaving. “Going to take Megan over to Wilcox for some Steak’n’Suds,” I called out. The S’n’S was a well-known roadhouse, often threatened with being closed down for underage drinking. It was also more than seventy miles away, across some rugged mountains, so my parents would know I was kidding.

“I thought you were already in bed,” Mom protested but got distracted by a scream from the movie they were all watching.

I slipped out the door between their wing of the house and mine onto the back patio. Wugger, the Old English Sheepdog who had replaced Piffle, the border terrier, made his characteristic, “Wug uff!” noise from deeper in the backyard. Wug took his job as a guard dog seriously and worried about coyotes and squirrels killing all of us in our sleep. He stayed outside all night and kept us safe, and we appreciated that.

“Just me, Wug,” I said. I sat on the wooden bench by the door to put on my boots. The dog came up for a head scratch as I finished, then went back on his patrol. It wasn’t nine p.m. yet, but at almost 5000 feet elevation, the temperature had already dropped below 50F. Wug in his fur coat and I in my leather and wool jacket were warm enough, though, and in fact, the cold seemed to improve my mood.

I had trouble figuring out just what, in particular, had gotten me so agitated that I felt the need to get out of the house. As I went around the garage to Pete’s truck, I remembered. Oh yeah. The need to get naked to take a shower.

It was the sort of existential dread they talked about in senior English literature classes. It being October, we had been reading Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. The monster in the book was almost nothing like the one in the films. You not only felt sorry for him, you ended up kind of rooting for him.

Dr. Frankenstein was certainly not the hero of the story. “I guess I’m the monster,” I muttered.

I paused beside the truck for a moment, watching my breath fog out. Then I had to step up on the abbreviated running board to reach the keyhole to unlock the door. Then back down to open the door before clambering inside. Jake did not have any such troubles.

Why was I taking Jake’s truck? Well, it was parked at my house, and I had the keys. Megan would enjoy the wide bench seat, and I already admitted that I was the monster in this story.

* * *

I pulled into the Star Valley Mobile Home Park and put on my parking lights to cruise the lanes. Then I revved the engine outside of Megan’s place instead of honking. Some people might be trying to sleep, but I needn’t have bothered. She was waiting under the awning and came right out to the truck.

I put the shifter in neutral, set the brake and scooted across the big bench seat to open the door for her and give her a hand in. She immediately kissed me. I don’t know why that surprised me, but I figured out I should kiss back.

We just sat there a bit, doing a lip dance and rubbing against each other. I pulled back first. “We shouldn’t just neck here where someone can, well, interrupt or get annoyed or something.”

She rolled her eyes but grinned at the same time. I put the truck in gear and rolled back out to the street before putting the headlights on again.

“Petey, Pete, Pete,” she murmured. “What am I going to do with you?”

I continued thru the roundabout to take the west leg of the highway, going toward Camp Verde. Since I’d told my folks I was heading east to Wilcox, they’d never be able to follow me. Not that they would anyway, it was just a driving game I sometimes played, pretending I was trying to throw off pursuit.

“Huh?” I said belatedly to Megan’s question. “What do you mean?”

She didn’t say anything for a moment. The full moon was behind us and the night was so bright I almost didn’t need headlights. I felt an odd peace after the craziness. Megan had scooted over close to me and dropped a hand onto my thigh. I trusted her not to do anything crazy there….

And then I remembered. The cold seemed to penetrate the cab, and I reached out to turn the heat up a notch.

“There’s a motel in Pine Creek and another in Strawberry Hill if the first one is full on a Saturday night,” Megan said, as matter-of-fact as if she were discussing where to find a 7-Eleven. The two small towns were both before the road began threading through the mountains toward Sedona.

“You sure?” I asked. It hadn’t been my reason for this late-night drive. I’d just wanted some company that might not ask awkward questions.

We cruised in the moonlight for another mile, saying nothing. I dropped a hand on top of Megan’s and glanced over at her.

She was looking at me with that solemn expression she got. The one where you figure she’s ready to laugh if someone gave her a reason. She sighed. “Pete, Petey, Pete,” she said with a catch in her voice. “We’re going to have to find out if either or both of us are lesbians sometime. Why not tonight?”

She still fit into my arms as well as she ever had.

We found a room at the first motel, and Megan paid for it with a credit card, thirty dollars plus tax and a city fee. I tried not to wince. I didn’t have that much money on me, and I didn’t have a credit card.

“Third cabin, second door,” said the clerk with no curiosity at all. We made our way along the walkway between slender evergreen sugar pines and rose bushes that had begun to lose their leaves.

The door opened on a typical motel room for the area, two regular-size beds, a dresser with a television on top, two night tables, a vanity table and a chair. One door on the back wall opened into a bathroom and the other, a walk-in closet. A through-the-wall heat-pump could both cool and warm the room.

I fiddled with the thermostat, setting it to 72°F while Megan explored the bathroom. “Clean enough,” she pronounced, “but they have one of those one-lever shower controls. I hate those.”

I nodded, then realized I was staring at her from a position near the door—like I might be planning on running away. I tried to relax. I took off my coat and tossed it on one of the beds.

“Pete, Petey, Pete,” said Megan stepping toward me as she took off her coat and tossed it on top of mine. She still fit into my arms as well as she ever had. We kissed. She lip-nibbled my lower lip, then pulled back for a moment. “Does it feel different to you?”

I shrugged. “I’m not sure I could tell,” I admitted. We kissed more.

She pulled back a bit. “We’re going to have to get naked to find out if this works,” she said.

I smiled. “Seems likely,” I said.

She snickered then began pulling on my shirt. We undressed each other slowly, lingering for a bit to play with nipples, to kiss, to suck on fingers. She wasn’t wearing a bra, and her little cocoa-puff nipples turned hard and crispy in the still chilly room.

We were down to our underpants, skin to skin otherwise. I’m not a bulky guy, but her soft slenderness still contrasted with my thicker, harder muscles. I liked that. “You’re like silken plush,” I said.

“And you’re like polished wood.”

I winced. Not as much of me as used to be.

She snickered again, and I wondered if I had said that part out loud. But she was smiling, so I smiled back.

“I meant your muscles,” she explained. “You still have them.”

“Mmm,” I said, not wanting to think about that. I put my fingers in the waistband of her panties and tugged them down to her knees. She retaliated in kind, and I felt my skin turn red.

She wasn’t looking down there, though. Her eyes were on my chest. “Your nipples just popped up,” she said, then looked me in the eye. “I guess you’re ready to come out of the oven.”

I snorted. We both stepped out of our remaining underwear and fell sideways on the bed, holding each other. We snuggled a bit, and I was perfectly aware that something was missing.

“Was it only last night?” I murmured, nuzzling her curly, mahogany-colored hair.

“Uh, huh?” she replied, making it sound like a question. Where were her hands? One was on my cheek, and the other had dropped down toward my waist, pausing to play with my navel.

“That we made love,” I said in answer.

“We did,” she agreed. “I don’t know if we love each other, Petey, Pete, Pete….” She trailed off.

I nibbled on her lip. It felt fat and juicy. I had one hand cupping a breast, and the curve of her neck fitted into my other. She tugged on one of my earlobes. Her other hand wandered further down. She touched me somewhere….

The feeling was so unexpectedly intense that I sucked in all the air in the room.

“Sorry,” she said. “It’s pretty sensitive there, isn’t it?”

I nodded. If I had opened my mouth, I might have cursed or screamed or moaned— I don’t know which. Her fingers played around the area, but stayed away from the panic button.

She moved, and both of us sat up. I pulled her into my lap, and she put both hands behind my neck, kissing me on the cheeks, the mouth, the neck. I had my hands on her butt, pulling her in closer. I heard myself laugh. I don’t know why. She chuckled in my ear, responding.

“You’re taller than me, bigger than me,” she said. “I like that.”

“Not much taller,” I pointed out. “Two or three inches, at most.”

“That’s why I don’t wear heels when we're out together.”

“I appreciate that,” I said, pulling back so she could see me grin.

We explored each other’s bodies, toppling sideways to lie face-to-face on the bed. She took my hand and lightly placed it on her pussy.

“It’s so warm,” I said.

“It feels hot from this side,” she scoffed.

She put her own hand on me in the same place, and I let her— not flinching, not gasping, not moving away. She pressed, rubbing gently. I heard myself moan.

“It’s not like…” I said in a voice I had never heard before.

“No, it’s not,” she agreed. “You can… you can….” She moved against my hand, and we leaned toward each other and kissed.

Eventually, she had two fingers inside me, and I thought I would lose my mind when the palm of her hand brushed that sensitive little hidden nubbin. “God, Megan,” I said urgently, “how do you stand it!”

She laughed softly and bit me on the collarbone.

We made love for most of an hour, and she held me when I wept with the intensity and beauty of the experience.

* * *

When we woke, we made love again. It did not take us as long to get to the panting and grunting phase the second time. We ground our hips together, slick with our own juices. Someone screamed, and I put a hand in my mouth to keep from doing it again.

Afterward, we lay spooned together, Megan at my back. She played with my face with one hand while I teased and nibbled on her fingers. Our right hands were twined together and trapped somewhere under us. With my own left, I tested myself, but nothing could tempt me to touch the part of me that had given so much pleasure. It would have been too intense, perhaps even painful.

“That was a lot of fun,” Megan said in my ear.

I heard a giggle, joined by another one.

“Your face is so smooth,” she said, stroking my chin the way guys stroked their own in razor commercials.

I sighed.

“You never had any beard— or is it gone, too?” she asked.

“Never had any,” I said. “My Dad said he didn’t shave until he was twenty-five.”

“I’m sorry, Petey,” she said. “I’ve never done this with a girl before.”

“Ow,” I said.

“Joanna offered once,” she continued. “It was at a cheerleader sleepover event. She was ready to take on any of us.”

“Joanna, the slut,” I said, and we both giggled.

“We were all a little drunk, I guess.”

“But not that drunk.” More giggles.

We were both silent for a time, then Megan asked quietly, “Could you sleep for a bit?”

“I thought I was,” I said. “I know I must be dreaming.”

“What time is it?”

“The clock was wrong when we got here. It’s probably still wrong.”

“It’s not plugged in.”

“Then I know it’s wrong.”

“Neither of us wears a watch?”

“I don’t wear a watch cause they’re a hazard playing football.”

“I don’t wear one, apparently because I’m a hazard. They just stop working after a month or so.”

I shrugged, and Megan giggled.

She gave me a bit of a squeeze. “Petey, I don’t think I’m a lesbian.”

“Uh,” I didn’t know what to say.

“But we can do this again, you know, just to make sure.” She giggled.

I wanted to laugh, but didn’t want to giggle, so I made a noise like a chicken swallowing a string of pearls. Then we both laughed.

“Sleep,” she said.

“Sleep,” I agreed. But before I dozed off, I thought I heard her say. “I think I may love you, Petey, Pete, Pet.”

* * *

If I had dreams, I don’t remember them— except one where Megan’s brother, Travis, told me I couldn’t marry her because she would look terrible in a tuxedo.

“I’ll wear the tuxedo,” I protested.

“I can’t let you do that,” he said. “It wouldn’t be right.”

I woke up with soft, ladylike snores in my ear.

I untangled myself, got up, and did my business. I looked out the window in the bathroom, cranking it open and standing on tiptoe. The darkness said it might be hours before dawn— time to head home before my parents got up and started calling hospitals.

I needed a shower, but wondered if it was worth it when I would have to put the same clothes back on. A sniff test said yes, a shower was not really optional. The smell was pungent, yet not completely unpleasant— but probably not everyone would agree.

I started the water running, and that woke Megan up. She rushed into the bathroom, pushed me aside, mumbling, and used the toilet, wincing at the light as she sat there. She looked around, her eyes only half-open, taking in the water running in the shower and me standing there naked.

She said something, but I had to ask her to repeat it.

“We gonna play around in the shower, or just shower?” she asked.

“I think we better just shower and get out of here. We have no idea what time it is.”

“Okay,” she agreed. “I’m a morning person, but I’m not a get-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night person. I feel stupid.”

I laughed at her. If I’m awake, I’m awake. She made grumpy noises, but smiled at me. I let her take the first shower on the grounds she might fall back asleep if she had to wait.

It occurred to me to turn on the television and see if one of the channels had the time. The motel had cable, and I found a station that ran the time and weather across the bottom of the screen while showing an old black-and-white movie— a weird western with Dean Martin and John Wayne. But the time wasn’t as late as I feared— just a little past two in the morning.

Megan came out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around her, smiling and looking more awake. She handed me a clear plastic cap. “Don’t let your hair get wet. It’s going to be cold outside.”

“Uh, huh, thanks,” I said. Then we kissed before I went in to take my shower.

* * *

I dropped the room key into the box outside the office, then we climbed into Jake’s big truck and got on the road. It was most of a half hour back to town, and Megan lived on the west end, near the airport, where we would come in.

Once we were traveling, Megan slid across the seat and snugged herself up against my side. She yawned, and I grinned at her.

“I’m gonna have to keep talking, or I’ll fall back asleep,” she said. “You okay to drive?”

“I’m fine,” I assured her.

“So, what did you think?” she asked.

“About what?”

“About the sex! Jeez!” She pretended to be annoyed at me.

“Sex is good,” I noted. “I believe it may become very popular.”

“Goofus,” she said. “Was it different? For you, I mean. It was different for me.”

“Different, yeah,” I agreed. “You could say that.”

A big eighteen-wheeler flicked his lights on and off to indicate it was safe for me to pass him. When I got around, I flicked my lights the same way.

“It was different for me, too,” she said. “Do you think it was better?”

“Better? I dunno.” I squirmed a little. “Is it always that intense?”

She snorted. “Petey, that was only my fourth time having sex. Well, naked sex.”

I boggled a tiny bit at the qualifier.

“But it was just as intense before. You.”

I shook my head. “Friday night was my very first time, Megan. I’m not sure I have enough evidence to decide.”

She cackled like a hen. “Evidence!” She squealed and poked me in the side with a finger. “Petey, you’re a hoot!”

“Hey! I’m driving here!” I protested.

She subsided into giggles, and we rode in silence for a bit. I tried not to think about things.

“Petey, Pete, Pet,” she said finally.

“What?” I asked. Did I have a new nickname?

“I was a little worried, but I thought it was safe enough,” she sighed.

A chill touched my neck. “Safe?”

“Granny said it would be safe….”

“What?” I demanded.

“Having sex again,” she explained. “Making love. What if that first time with me had been what made you change?”

I blinked five or twenty times. “Jeez, Megan! You could have warned me!” I gripped the steering wheel so tight my fingers ached.

“But now we have evidence,” she said. “Granny said the sex wouldn’t make you change again, and now we know she was right.”

“I don’t…. I’m not….” The city limits of Friendly loomed ahead, and we passed the egg farm and the ranch where they rented horses to tourists on one side, the airport on the other. I took the right-hand turn on the short side of the roundabout.

The tiny red neon arrow that marked the entrance to the trailer park where Megan lived came up, and I turned in and shut off my headlights at the same time.

“Petey,” Megan asked in a small voice. “You’re not sorry we made love, are you?”

Well, when she put it that way…. “I guess not,” I admitted. We laughed then and kissed, and I got out to help her down on the driver’s side. Her door was right there, and we kissed again.

“I’m not sorry either,” she whispered. I watched her go inside then I got back in the truck and drove home.

Time to think...

Sunday morning came a little too soon, but Mom had made piggies-in-their-beds, link sausages snugged into biscuit dough and baked until brown. With Dad’s scrambled eggs with cheese and chives, breakfast made a powerful statement about the world spinning the right direction.

I honestly forgot about all my problems while eating and clowning with my sisters. Other than the earlier solitary embarrassment of having to sit down to pee, it could have been an ordinary Sunday.

I think I surprised everyone when I said I wanted to go to church. We weren’t a big church-going family —Christmas and Easter pretty much— but when Dad asked why, I said, “I just want to check in with the Guy Upstairs to be sure I’m still on His good side. What with the luck I’ve been having….”

That kind of made sense to him — he probably thought I meant our team winning streak — so he nodded and the rest of the family agreed. It was a fine fall day and Mom and the other girls looked forward to dressing up a bit. “Scoot,” Mom ordered and my sisters scampered off to their bedroom, almost squealing with glee.

The irony, if that’s the word, of that bit didn’t occur to me until I was standing in front of my closet wondering what I should wear. I shook that off and tried to be decisive. The dark blue suit I had last worn to a June wedding had been tight then, but it turned out to fit well enough. A bit looser, in fact, than I remembered it had been. Should I be pleased at that? I couldn’t tell.

Then I thought maybe the white shirt I had picked looked a bit stiff, so I changed it out for a pale blue one with a thin gray stripe. Better. A string tie with a brass lion’s head clasp, plus my Oxford-style black dress shoes and I was set. My black socks would do; all my navy ones were dirty. I decided I probably should have a few more pairs of navy for when I was wearing so much blue.

I went down the hall to the living room and found Dad watching a sports show about the NFL games schedule. The Cowboys and Broncos get most of the local support (about evenly divided because nobody likes the California teams), and both looked likely to win their games later in the day. “Denver and Dallas,” said Dad. “Wouldn’t that be a Super Bowl to see?” As a salesman, he had to be careful not to show much preference for either local favorite.

“I guess,” I said. Denver had yet to play in a post-season game, so such an outcome was unlikely. Besides, I had enough football to think about without imagining matchups within the pros. I sat on the couch and watched the announcers blather meaninglessly. The TV analysts never seemed to have any more knowledge or insight about the teams than the local blowhards.

I’d never considered that I had any real chance of making the NFL, but still, my new circumstance made the whole thing a bit — poignant, I guess is the word. Jake could try for a professional career, if he wanted, but the important thing was to win enough games to get him into a good school.

I had lost the prospect of a scholarship to even a second or third tier school. Not that I had really counted on that, either. I’d probably end up going to State down in Tempe in a couple of years. My grades were good enough to get in and there were grants and loans available. Football? Not unless things changed back.

I wanted to stop thinking about that, so I tried to concentrate on what Dad was watching, but it all seemed like so much noise. Had there been a time I lived and breathed football? Only a week or so ago, I wouldn’t have felt the need to fake interest.

Everything seemed to lead back to what had happened Friday night. Suddenly, I had to bite my lip to keep it from trembling. My life had changed so much. I got up suddenly and headed out the side door to the yard, in case I started crying.

“What’s up, son?” Dad called after me.

“Just... checking on Wugger,” I said, the lie coming so easily it shamed me. To ease my guilt, I emptied Wug’s large medal water bowl and refilled it. He ambled in from his usual resting place under the trees at the far end of the yard and accepted some affectionate pats and ear rubs.

But Wug was all business and kept an eye on the back fence even while being petted. Sometimes I imagined him as one of those dogs in the cartoons that punches a time clock in his struggle against Wile E. Coyote. We did have coyotes, bobcats, mountain lions, and black bears in the area, so Wug wasn’t being paranoid, just cautious.

Still, his seriousness about his tasks as guard dog cracked me up when I spent any time thinking about it. And he’d done his other job, the one he didn’t even know he had, cheering me up and out of the mood I had fallen into. I laughed then thumped him on the side and congratulated him with a “Wug is a good dog,” just as Dad called out.

“We’re leaving, Pete!” his voice came from the front yard. He and Mom were taking the family car while my sisters had talked me into giving them a ride in Jake’s big truck.

I gave Wugger a good-bye ear ruffle and wandered around to the side yard where I found my sisters waiting for me beside Jake’s big red truck.

“You wish this was yours, huh?” Jordan teased while Molly mimed opening the door.

I shrugged. “Dad’s hinting I may be getting something off the used lot soon.” I grinned at her, “Then it will be your turn to drive the Mom-mobile as soon as you can get a license.”

She smiled. “That’s a couple years away. You’ll be gone to college and I bet I can get something off the lot from Dad, too.”

I rolled my eyes but she was probably right. Dad spoiled his girls. Having thought that, I couldn’t unthink it. How would Dad and Mom react when they found out about me?

“I wanna car, too!” Molly complained.

Jordan and I laughed at her, then I opened the heavy truck door and boosted her inside. Jordan didn’t need help, so I trotted around to the driver’s door and we got under way.

Molly and Jordan nattered about something while I realized that I had been putting off thinking about why I wanted to go to church. God doesn’t have a complaint department, I think I remember some pastor preaching bout that once. Everything happens for a reason.

I sighed. The mysterious ways were a little too mysterious right now.

But I remembered another sermon, one that was on counting your blessings. I needed to do some thinking about that. Mom has a phrase she uses to describe me when I’m really deep in thought. She says that I’m “masticating my brain.” I had to look that up, but yeah, I really had something to chew on this time.

Something, or Someone, must have really wanted me to hear the sermon today.

I tried to talk to Joe Stonebridge, the youth pastor, about my problem after the regular service. I’d sort of made an appointment with him before we all sat down in our pews, touching him on the arm as we passed through the nave and asking if I could speak to him privately after the service.

“Sure, Pete,” he said. “See you about 12:45?”

I nodded, then I took a seat in a back pew in the right hand corner of the sanctuary. The room collected more people but was still half empty during the announcements and hymns.

This was our new church with the stained glass windows on the west side, the high ceilings with the brown beams showing, and the baptismal tank up behind the stage where you could only see it when they removed the screen. The dais was raised like a stage all across that end of the room with a piano on the right and an organ on the left.

Our old church had been made of adobe and wood, covered with stucco, and still sat diagonally across the intersection from the new one. I’d been younger than Molly when Pastor Bernie (his last name) had come to town and used his skills in construction to start building the new church.

Pastor Eduardo Bernie was a bit older than my parents, a dark, stocky man who framed houses and built garages when he wasn’t in the church. He preached on miracles that Sunday and how we are not supposed to be able to understand them. “That’s why they’re called miracles,” he said more than once.

Okay, I thought. Was what happened to me a miracle? It sure wasn’t something I understood, so it qualified on that point. More than once during the sermon, I felt tears trickling down my face. I was glad I had chosen to sit in a corner away from my family or anyone else.

Even so, I felt like I had a bullseyes painted on my forehead. Pastor Bernie nailed his message into my brain with his closer. “You don’t have to understand the miracles in your life. All God wants is that you should accept them.”

Stunned, I hardly moved while the service ended. I must have sang the closing hymn with everyone else but I don’t remember doing so. I just found myself standing there in the pew with the hymnal in my hand. I put the book back in the little rack and moved toward the aisle.

I felt dazed. Could I have gotten a more direct message from a celestial power? The only way to read the message seemed to be that I had been granted a miracle and I should just accept it. Even if it was a miracle I had not wanted…? What if Lazarus had not wanted to be brought back to life?

I’d already arranged that my sisters would ride with Mom and Dad to the Red Dragon restaurant where we usually ate lunch after church so that I could have my meeting with Pastor Joe. Still standing at the end of the pew, I just waited till almost everyone else had left the sanctuary.

Mom and Dad and my sisters passed me standing there and I nodded at something Dad said to me, even though I didn’t really hear him. I felt sandbagged. Why had I wanted to come to church today? We didn’t normally average even as much as once a month, partly because Dad often worked on Sundays.

Something, or Someone, must have really wanted me to hear the sermon today.

*

I went out to the church’s entry and stared at the bulletin board announcements. Evening prayer service Sunday and Wednesday. Women’s Missionary Council Monday at noon. Men’s Business Lunch Meeting Tuesday. Youth services Thursday evening. Biking Retreat Saturday afternoon.

I noted the distinction between the meetings on Monday and Tuesday. Different things were expected of men and women. I shook my head. There were two other signs in the entry: Men and Women, directing people to the appropriate restroom. More head shaking.

I found the dusty back steps to Pastor Joe’s office above the ground-floor bathrooms deserted. A light shone at the top of the stairs though, and I realized the church youth leader was at his desk waiting for me. I hadn’t known for sure what I planned to say to him when I made the appointment and now…. Well, I couldn’t say I was more confused than before. In fact, some things seemed clearer. Not any easier, though.

I trudged up to what had once been planned as a choir loft before being enclosed to make an office under the brown ceiling beams. A tiny air conditioner made the space livable during the summer and heat from the downstairs seemed to keep it warm enough in the winter.

Pastor Joe must have heard me climbing because he called out. “Pete? Come on up. You want a soda? I have my own little refrigerator up here.” He chuckled.

“No, sir,” I said as I reached his open door. The only other room at the top of the stairs was a storage space. “I’m fine. I’ll be going to lunch with my family when I leave.” I still didn’t know what I was going to say to him, but I had made the appointment so I owed him for making time for me.

Pastor Joe was a lean man, a bit taller than average with ginger-blond hair receding into a widow’s peak, even though he was only in his mid-twenties. He sat behind a sort of makeshift desk, really a folding table covered with books and papers and a portable typewriter. He wore rimless glasses, perhaps for reading since I didn’t usually see him wearing them.

He peered at me over the lenses, a smile almost on his lips. “You look troubled, Pete,” he said.

I looked away from him. This had been a terrible idea. What in the world would I say to him? “I guess I am,” I muttered. Then repeated that looking directly at him to take the sting off my rudeness.

“Do you want to tell me what the trouble is?” he asked.

“I guess I do, Joe.” He’d already gotten most of the young people of the church to call him by his first name by immediately correcting them. “But I don’t seem to know how.”

He gestured at a chair and I stumbled a bit as I sat down. I felt awkward enough already, I didn’t have to prove it.

“Do I need to begin guessing?” he asked with a grin.

“No, no,” I shook my head.

“Will it help if I tell you I’ve probably already met someone with a problem very much like yours?”

I sighed. “I very much doubt that,” I said, smiling a bit wryly myself.

He nodded, apparently willing to accept my own assessment of my problem. “Does it have to do with school?” he offered.

“Well, yes. But it has to do with everything.”

Joe waited, but I stayed silent. After a moment, I saw his chest move in what looked like a silent chuckle. “Pete,” he finally said. “I’m pretty sure it can’t be as bad as it probably looks to you.”

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. I nodded. “You’re probably right.” I stood up. There was just no way I was going to be able to tell him I was the victim of an unexpected and unwanted miracle.

I retreated toward the door, mumbling my thanks and an apologetic goodbye.

He called after me as I started down the steep stairs. “Pete, my door is open when you do want to talk about it.”

“Thanks, again, Joe,” I called back up to him. I took the outside door at the bottom of the stairs and looked out over the nearly empty parking lot. Jake’s red truck sat there waiting for me. I started toward it, my empty stomach complaining a bit even though I didn’t really feel like eating.

I climbed into the cab and started the big engine up. The folks were probably ordering a Family Feast at the Red Dragon already. I needed to relax so I could enjoy a meal with them.

My problems were still my own and I still didn’t want to think about them.

Better to concentrate on winning football games.

Why is it always Monday?

I made it to school on Monday, still using Jake’s truck, after picking him and Megan up. She sat between us on the wide bench seat, but snuggled up close to me. For some reason, this seemed to disturb Jake and he wouldn't look at us. There had been an uncomfortable silence in the cab from Megan’s place to the senior parking lot where I backed the monster pickup in between two pastel mom-mobiles.

As Megan climbed down with my help on the driver’s side, she whispered to me, “I think Jake is a bit freaked that we’re still acting all lovey-dovey.” She added a grin when I looked down at her.

“Might be right,” I muttered. I was amused, but didn't grin back.

It took Jake a bit longer than usual to get out of the truck. Since he couldn’t just open the door with his injured right hand, he had to reach across with his left to work the lever. But he still had to push the door with his right shoulder and I heard him make a noise like a painful grunt.

I didn’t comment on it, though. If he had wanted attention called to his situation, he would have made more noise. I put an arm around Megan and headed for homeroom, which we all shared, Jake trailing behind.

* * *

Classes went all right; lots of congratulations on our victory Friday, and hopes expressed that we would continue our winning ways. I replied, “Rah! Lions!” to almost anything anyone said.

Jake got a lot of attention he obviously did not want. The girls all seemed empathetic to his pain, but lots of the guys chided him for putting the team at risk by injuring himself off the playing field. He grumped his way through it without actually snapping at anyone.

Seniors all had a free fourth period, so we could take early or late lunch, whichever we wanted – or sign up for study hall or some elective. Megan took Dance in early fourth, and I had taken Art, but I ditched class today to go watch Megan and nineteen other girls plus five boys work on dance routines while I swotted the math homework I hadn’t done over the weekend.

The big room's theater-type seating was pushed back to the walls, and the empty middle was taken up with tables and chairs for people to do what I was doing, eating lunch and pretending to do schoolwork. If the dance class needed privacy, they would pull the stage curtain, but today they were working in the open.

It was usually hard to keep my mind on cosines with Megan and other trim athletic girls bouncing around the wooden floor of the auditorium stage. But this time, I had other mental problems to distract me. One of them was that Gilbert Goff, a male dancer (and the strong safety on the football team), had amazing muscles. I’d never really noticed before and it was creeping me out.

The other problem occurred when Jake arrived with a tray full of nachos in his left hand. I’d already eaten a ‘shamburger’ (the cafeteria believed no one could taste the soy protein they added to their hamburger meat), but the tortilla chips covered with green jalapeños, red pimentos and melted cheese were irresistible. The big lunk had even remembered to snag extra napkins, tucked into the sling on his wounded right arm.

“I could kiss you,” I told him facetiously, as he set the bounty down between us.

“You damn well better not!” he snapped, visibly recoiling.

‘A hit, a palpable hit,’ I mentally misquoted from somewhere, grinning at him.

We crunched nachos and watched the dancers practice for a bit. I tried to keep my eyes on Megan, but GoGo (Goff’s nickname on the team) had some flashy moves that kept attracting my attention. ‘You damn well better not be thinking about what you seem to be thinking about,’ I told myself silently.

Jake took my mind off my own traitorous mental imagery by leaning across the plate of greasy treats between us, and demanding. “Have you done any planning on how you’re going to handle getting in and out of the locker room?”

I shrugged, like it hadn’t occurred to me to worry about it. “I’m going to use the bathroom and showers of the coaches’.”

He scowled at me. “How you going to justify that? Wilson is going to ask why, you know.”

I shrugged again like it wasn’t even important. Mostly I was doing this to annoy Jake, because I really had gotten up early to spend some time working out plans. “I’ll just tell him I need to use his shower so the guys don’t see something I don’t want them to see.”

Jake’s mouth dropped open with a cheese-and-peppers-laden chip on the way.

“It’s true, too,” I said, nodding firmly.

Jake closed his mouth with an audible clop and put the nacho back on the plate. He glared at me, but before he could summon up something to say to me in such a public place, I pointed at my middle. “I’ve got a line of hickeys across my body from here to here,” I gestured, showing the hypothetical track.

We both glanced toward the stage, where it just so happened that GoGo Goff and Megan were stomping across the stage in a ballroom clinch. The sight was so arresting that Jake and I both gawped for a three count. When the music announced a change of action, we turned back toward each other.

Curiously, I felt my face turning red, and wondered if my embarrassment extended down to the one real hickey I did have on my torso. Megan had planted a juicy one just above and outboard of my left nipple. She’d also complained that my tummy was too hard and gnarly to be any fun chewing on.

Jake and I stared at each other for a bit longer. Then, with a shared sigh, we went back to munching on Mexican morsels.

“That’ll probably work for this week,” he observed, retrieving the nacho he had previously selected.

“Yeah,” I agreed.

Mrs. Delahoussie, the dance director, had evidently called a conference downstage, and all the dancers had gathered around her, coincidentally facing those of us in the audience.

Megan winked at me, so I winked back. Then GoGo Goff winked at me, too!

Worse, I smiled at him and almost winked back. ‘I’m losing my mind,’ I thought.

“Coach! Jeez!” I complained. But better to let him get a look now ...

Coach Wilson thought the reason I gave him for wanting to avoid undressing in the locker room was hilarious. “She what?” His grin could not have been wider. “She marked you, huh?” He laughed outright, causing his class of golfers to give us a closer look as we chatted on the sidelines of the fake fairway.

“Uh, yeah,” I agreed. It was true. Megan had left a line of love bites across my middle. She said I was lucky she didn’t try to spell out her name. I rolled my eyes then, and I rolled them again at Coach’s outright laughter.

“This is the black cheerleader?” he asked, sputtering.

I hadn’t told him who I’d been dating, but I frowned at his description of Megan. There weren’t more than a dozen black families in the whole valley, so Megan did kind of stand out. Still, she was black only by convention; she had almost as much European ancestry as I did and was lighter-skinned than many of the Hispanic and Native American students at school.

So I didn’t answer the question. In fact, I made that part of my pitch. “I don’t want to have to answer questions about it, Coach. Just…is there somewhere I can change and take a shower without causing a lot of laughter and pointing?”

“Yeah, yeah,” he waved at me while turning back to watch his class learning to use their clubs — something called a nine iron. “Just go through my office to the coach’s corridor. There are two bathrooms with showers at each end. Pick one.”

“Thanks, Coach,” I said.

He made a face, looking at me sideways. “I won’t say a word about why you’re doing this. That’s up to you.”

“Yeah, thanks again.” I got out of there, heading toward my fifth-period class.

* * *

I skated without incident through the rest of the afternoon, making an excuse to Mrs. Barbera to leave sixth-period Civics before the bell.

“Coach needs me there a little early,” I said, and that was good enough. Being a football star comes with a few perks in high school. If Coach needs you, he needs you, and no one is going to dispute that.

I did get to the gym before the bell, but I had somehow forgotten that the place would be full of kids taking a sixth-period class. I walked in through the big doors to a locker room full of boys in various states of damp and underdressed. I don’t know why I didn’t expect that.

It was surreal. And steamy. A whole room full of half-naked boys horsing around, making rude noises, yelling insults, and generally being cheerfully obnoxious. Just as it had always been, I suppose, but I suddenly felt like an outsider.

Because I was. What I had in my pants was not what they were showing me way too many of. I didn’t stare, but it did strike me that penises and testicles are pretty funny-looking if you really think about it. I felt the urge to laugh, and I struggled with it, fearing that I would giggle or something.

I didn’t know many of the guys in this class. Because of being a jock, I didn’t really have time to hang with people who weren’t athletic. Most of the kids in sixth-period gym had a free period in seventh, or something like a study hall, or another way of going home early if they wanted.

I did see Lee Benally, one of the Navajo students who I had been friends with for some time. He played baseball in the summer, but his folks wanted him to concentrate on academics. Too bad, in a way. He was a good second baseman--but that was usually my position, too.

Lee didn’t seem to see me, and I didn’t wave at him or anything. That would be too weird. Why did I even think of it?

Coach Wilson’s office was the farthest along the wall, right before the big doors that opened into the gym floor or the fields outside. Sure enough, it was unlocked, but Coach was nowhere to be found. The door to the inner hall opened, too, and I went to the left and found a small locker room with eight big lockers and fourteen small ones. It was all just for the coaches, and had a bathroom and two showers with shower doors attached.

But I needed stuff from my locker, and to get it, I would need to go out into the damp mob getting dressed in their street clothes. I sighed. This was a lot scarier than I expected. I wasn’t quite sure what I was afraid of, though.

I stashed my books in one of the tall empty lockers in the coach’s room and headed out to retrieve my practice uniform from my usual locker. There were fewer naked guys around, and now was as good a time as any, just as the bell rang and the exodus began in earnest.

But my neck muscles seemed to have turned to wood by the time I got back to the inner sanctum with all my uniforms. I wasn’t going to do that again on game day. The strain of not looking was too much.

We haven’t even got on the field to do wind sprints, and I’m already tired, I thought. Would I be able to juggle this amount of strain and still win football games for ten more weeks?

Getting dressed in my practice uniform was a revelation. The football pants that went with it were so tight that the fact that something was missing would have been obvious if I weren’t wearing my jockstrap and protective cup. They were empty, of course, but no one had to know that.

It felt weird, and I wondered if, without something to keep it full, if the protective cup would move around. The jock should hold it in place, and hey, things were still sensitive down there, so the cup was a good idea. If it didn’t felt so weird.

Fully dressed in my yellow practice uniform, I headed back out through the inner hallway to Coach Wilson’s office and found the man himself sitting there making marks on a clipboard. He looked up at me and grinned. “So she put her mark on you, huh?” He chuckled and made a motion that I should pull up my jersey. “Lemme see!”

“Coach! Jeez!” I complained. But better to let him get a look now rather than be tempted to come in on me in the private lockers. I turned so no one could see my bared middle through the big window into the locker room and pulled up my shirt to show the line of purplish bruises.

“Boy, oh, boy,” Coach chortled. “Lucky she didn’t decide to spell out her name, huh!”

I rolled my eyes and headed to the helmet racks to pick up mine.

Jake and Dave Garcia were there, loitering before going out on the field. Jake even had his uniform and pads on with his arm still in a sling. “Someone help you with that?” I asked.

He made a short upward jerk of his head in Dave’s direction.

“Yeah,” Dave drawled. “I had to take care of the old man.”

Jake and I both snorted at the joke. Dave was a year younger than either of us, a junior, and he’d probably be quarterbacking for us on Friday unless Jake convinced Coach he had made a miraculous recovery.

I twitched. Well, no one knew better than me that miracles can happen. Still, Dave seemed kind of happy at the situation. But Jake looked at him sideways, like you might at a cockroach you’d just noticed on the wall.

Dave looked sly. "I heard it involves a cheerleader."

Dave, Jake and I had our little confab with Coach Wilson about how things were going to go Friday night. The rest of the team did drills under assistant coach Pasco's guidance. The senior cheerleader squad was also meeting at the far end of the field.

I saw Megan with them and resisted the urge to wave at her. Coach Wilson would disapprove of the distraction. She wasn't hard to pick out of the small crowd of girls with her dark skin and hair. Joanna, the head cheerleader and Jake's squeeze, wasn't difficult to spot either; she was easily the tallest blonde on the squad.

I felt some mixed emotions, what with everything that had happened between Megan and me over the weekend, but Coach called my attention back to our off-field huddle.

Jake wasn't going to concede that he likely would not be able to play Friday, but he didn't refuse to advise Dave. "Remember, the Bulldogs are aggressive. It's their style. They're going to try to come after you. I think the coach somehow rewards guys who get a sack."

Coach snorted. "That's just a rumor. All they get is an attaboy, same as I give you guys for doing your job."

Dave looked sly. "I heard it involves a cheerleader."

Coach Wilson just shook his head. Dave and Jake snorted amusement.

I have no idea what my face looked like at that moment, but I must have seemed pretty sour because Dave frowned.

"What?" I asked.

Coach turned to me, "And I think we're going to have to get you more protection, Pete. You've been carrying the ball a lot, and last week's performance kind of cemented it: you're the best running back in the league, and if they can't stop you, they aren't going to win."

I shrugged, but Jake looked stricken. I didn't want to think about why. "They'll have to catch me to stop me," I said.

Coach frowned. "You're most vulnerable at the line of scrimmage, and yes, if you get past their defenders, their big problem is catching you." I grinned. Our most productive running play was a simple strong-side hand-off with the right tackle, Matt Poole, blocking and our tight end, Lew Epstein, running ahead of me to worry their linebackers.

Lew was the tallest guy on the team, an inch or so taller than Jake, and mostly known as "Upsteen" or just "Up," with long arms and sticky fingers. There was always the danger for the other team that he might actually be setting up to catch a pass while my run was just a distraction, but I could count on him to take out a late defender if I got free.

And my getting free usually depended on Matt Poole, who sort of defined what it meant to be an offensive tackle, at least at the high school level. A big guy, but quick, Matt generally took out the first defender facing him before the guy had time to realize I was looking for a hole. "Be the hole" was Matt's motto, and I loved to hear the wallop sound he made colliding with someone trying to stop me.

We discussed the audibles that Jake, or Dave, could use to adjust play for changing circumstances, but Coach warned our junior quarterback not to think he was smart enough or experienced enough to be able to count on knowing when to use them. "Better to keep your mouth shut," Coach advised.

We even did some strategizing. "They haven't a clue about you as quarterback, Garcia," said Coach, "and they know what a threat Kitten is, so we use that. First half, we see if you can find a receiver on every play we can, and if you're coming through with some completions, they'll stop watching Pete closely. Then after the break, we roll out a running game and make them really sweat."

Dave looked doubtful, and Jake glared at the ground, but it sounded good to me. We worked out what sort of drills we could run to practice our planned attack then we did the required wind sprints and ran a couple laps around the field. Coach Wilson was of the firm opinion that stamina won more football games than fancy footwork, and there was a lot to be said for his approach. Some of it printable.

Jake tried running with us, but having his arm in a sling made it awkward and painful, so he sat on the bench and glared at us as we went by. I wasn't sure whether to be annoyed at his attitude or amused by it. He was still taking every chance he got to protest to me about my playing football at all.

The real miracle in my situation became my not strangling him for being such a downer. But practice ended a bit before 5 p.m, and I trudged toward the gym with everybody else.

* * *

I definitely needed a shower after all the running, and the coach's bathroom would provide the privacy I had to have but getting there presented a problem that I hadn't considered. About half the team had got to the gym before me, and most of them had quickly stripped off their gear and were lining up in their altogethers to get their own showers.

Why should a smelly room full of half-naked boys be a problem to me? I dunno, but it was. Where could I look? Was my face as red as it felt? I hurried past them, trying not to look. Dave stood on one of the benches, naked, what he still had that I no longer possessed on display as he defended his perch with snaps of a gym towel.

He quickly jumped off his mountain throne when he spotted Coach Wilson coming into the locker room behind me. I glanced back to be sure Coach was not following me to the inner hallway between the coaches' offices and their own locker room.

I discarded my helmet on the wall of hooks by the field exit and hurried toward the sanctuary without anyone except probably Jake aware of where I had actually gone.

I tried to put how disturbing I had found exposure to naked male flesh out of my mind. My excuse for needing a secluded place to get naked would work for this week and maybe the next, but how long could I keep from being seen?

Five people already know my secret, maybe more if Joanna is really as much of a blabbermouth as Megan said. According to Megan, the other girls on the cheering squad didn't believe the story, and Joanna didn't try to convince them.

But seeing is believing, if anyone else sees me, especially if they catch me naked in the boy's locker room, I won't be able to play football.

I hurried through the coaches' office and down the hidden hall to get a shower as quick as I could. Just being in the gym at all was a risk to my planning. I felt my face twist up, so I ran right on into the shower room, pulling off my jersey and pads, and stuck my head into the stall, turning on the cold water to hit myself in the face.

I stripped the rest of my uniform off, changed the temperature to medium hot and got inside the stall so that steam might give me some protection from being seen if someone blundered into the room.

I soaped myself up good, especially down there, which had been surprisingly sweaty. I didn't want to think about it, so I rinsed off with cool water again and grabbed several of the thick towels to get dry.

I managed to escape without going back through the boys’ locker room

I managed to escape without going back through the boys’ locker room; the coaches’ corridor has its own entrance and exit. Megan was waiting for me, looking crisp and cute in her denim capris and a tied top, Elly May Clampett-style.

I had to grin at her, and when I held my arm up, she snuggled under it. We kissed, just a peck because we were still on school grounds, but it felt nice. It was as it had been for a moment, but then she asked, “You haven’t forgotten, have you?”

“Huh?” My stomach dropped.

She stood on tiptoe to whisper in my ear. “Two p.m. tomorrow, appointment with Aunt Louva.”

“Shh,” I hissed. I hadn’t exactly forgotten, but I had put it out of my mind and not made arrangements with the school office or Coach Wilson to be absent Tuesday afternoon. And Megan’s Aunt Louva was Dr. Verre, a gynecologist.

“I’m not going,” I said.

“Yes, you are,” she replied. We walked, arms around each other, toward the senior parking lot, where I had left Jake’s big red truck.

Jake was already there, with his arm in a sling. He hadn’t gotten sweaty enough to need a shower.

“Hey,” he said, looking glum.

“Hey, big guy,” I said.

“About Garcia,” he began, then stopped, looking at Megan.

“Yeah,” I reminded him. “Disagreements and discussions about team members are not for outside ears.”

Megan rolled her eyes at me.

Jake grunted. Gossip was not something that pleased Coach Wilson, and I felt glad for that fact myself, but everyone has secrets and sensitive information.

I unlocked the driver’s side door and helped Megan climb into the cab while Jake got in through the passenger’s door. “All right if we drop you off first,” he asked her, “so Pete and I can have a more private conversation about team—stuff?”

“I guess,” she replied, glancing at me for confirmation.

I nodded but said nothing, then used the key to twist the big engine to life. Megan lived farthest from the school of us three anyway, but if I had my own choice, I would have dropped Jake off first. Still, it was his truck, so he should get some say. I could kind of guess what he wanted to talk to me about, and no, Megan didn’t need to hear it.

None of us said much as I went first west, then south, to the Star Valley Mobile Home Park, where I took the truck out of gear but left the motor running. Megan and I kissed several times as I helped her out, gave her a squeeze, then watched as some of her younger siblings mobbed her. One of them, a nine-year-old boy called Telford, bounced up and down a few times trying to see into the cab of the truck.

“Call me,” Megan mimed using a telephone, and I nodded back. I had a feeling she was going to harass me until I agreed to go to the doctor tomorrow, but I didn’t see an easy way out.

Jake and I waved as we followed the lane between the big mobile homes back to the entrance.

“Big family,” Jake remarked. I didn’t think that needed a follow-up comment, so we both stayed quiet until I got back on the main drag that would take me toward Jake’s house.

“Garcia,” I mentioned.

Jake made a noise. “The prick thinks this is his opening to replace me on the team.”

I laughed. “He is just that dumb, isn’t he?”

“Yeah, he is.” Jake chuckled. He’d been morose, and now seemed more relaxed.

“You’ll be all right to play next week, and he'll be back warming the bench or coming in for a blowout.”

“Uh, huh,” he agreed.

Well, that didn’t take long, I thought.

But Jake wasn’t done. ‘I’m afraid he’ll get you hurt,” Jake said.

“Not this again,” I grumbled.

“He wants to throw the ball, not pass it off for you to get a piece of glory.”

“Huh,” I said. Jeez, that did sort of sound like Dave’s attitude. We’d run through some handoff plays, and would do some more in other practices before Friday, but yeah, Dave thought of the quarterback as someone who controlled the ball, which is true, but not the sum total of the job.

I took the turn into Jake’s subdivision, but looked over at him, startled, when he said, “If he fumbles a handoff to you, don’t think it’s an accident.”

“What?” I yelped. “He wouldn’t do that!”

Jake looked at me grimly. “If he drops the ball, literally, don’t you cover it. Let him do his own dirty work.”

I pulled into the gravel drive beside Jake’s house. Covering a loose ball is everyone’s job, but it's a good way to get hurt, too.

Jake had to reach across himself to open the door with his good hand, but he didn’t get out right away. “You understand what I’m saying?” he demanded.

I nodded. “I get you.”

“Right now,” Jake went on. “You and I are the stars of the team.” He made a face. “I’ve taken myself out of it for this week. He wants to be the only star. Don’t let him take you out.”

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll watch out.” Jake gave a quick nod and started to slide out the door. “I thought you were going to try to talk me out of playing at all again,” I mentioned. “Because of, you know….”

Jake shook his head. “My Dad reminded me last night that a guy can’t win an argument with a woman.”

“What!?” I yelped. “You didn’t tell him?”

“Gotcha,” he said, grinning. “Nah, it just came up in general conversation, but it’s good advice. For you, too,” he added. “You and Megan have any disagreements; the wise thing to do is let her win.”

“Huh,” I said, bemused. “Oh, I might not make it to practice tomorrow. Doctor’s appointment early afternoon.” Had I just decided I would go see Dr. Verre? I guess so.

Jake stood staring at me for a moment. “Do I want to know what kind of doctor?” he asked finally.

I guess my red face answered his question. “Don’t tell me,” he said, turning away. “I don’t want to know, but you better make sure that Coach has some clue you might not show up.”

“Uh, yeah,” I agreed. He closed the door and moved away.

I drove home thinking things over. I needed to call the coach at home, then have a note ready for the office tomorrow—and also I needed to call Megan.

Things were getting complicated. I made it home without having made any momentous decisions, but climbing down out of the cab, I was seized by a cramp in my left thigh. Charlie horses weren’t unknown after football practice, and I had been in an awkward position for a moment there.

I rubbed the pain with a knuckle and took several long strides to stretch the muscle out. This didn’t have anything to do with the other, did it? I walked around the house twice, making sure I was well stretched out.

Wug followed me the first time around, curious about what I was doing. I found a pinecone and threw it for him, but instead of bringing it back to me, he took it out to the back corner of the yard and buried it in the torn-up spot of ground we called the Bank of Wug.

Laughing at the big dog’s peculiarities, I went inside just in time for Megan to call me. I answered her on the extension in my room, and after we said hello, I announced, “You win, I’ll go.”

“Of course, you will,” she agreed with a giggle, and I had to laugh, too.

“You knew you would win that one, didn’t you?” I accused.

“Uh, huh,” she said. “And you knew it, too.”

“Yeah, well,” I muttered. We talked until Mom called my sisters and me to dinner, and I promised to pick her up at home in the morning so she wouldn't have to ride the bus.

I hung up smiling, pleased that even after my unwanted miracle, I still had a girlfriend.

My problem didn't seem to have a medical solution that I knew of.

A couple of phone calls in the morning arranged things for me to take Tuesday afternoon off school, though Coach Wilson wanted me there for any part of practice I could make it to.

"We've got to get you and Dave synched up on the plays," he insisted. I could see his point. Tuesday was one-third of the time we had before the Friday game. I didn't relish having to do my little routine to get a shower. Hmm? What if I just arranged to come home for a shower?

I might be able to work that out, and thinking about it was better than thinking about the doctor appointment Megan had cornered me into. What the heck could the doctor tell me, anyway? My problem didn't seem to have a medical solution that I knew of.

I mean, changing sex sometimes made the news, but not how I had done it. And did women ever try to change to men? How would that work?

I picked up Jake and Megan in reverse order of how I had dropped them off the night before, climbing down on the driver's side at Megan's stop to help boost her into the tall cab.

"Hey guys," she chirped after sitting in the middle of the bench seat. "Did you get the reading done?"

Jake shrugged, and I grinned at them because, yeah, I had got it done. Reading as homework is way easy for me.

"There's probably going to be a pop quiz on it tomorrow," Megan pointed out. I grinned at her. As jocks and cheerleaders, pop quizzes don't count against our semester grades, and Megan knew this as well as Jake and I did and gave up trying to needle us over it.

Jake glared out the side window toward the desert hills southeast of town, a much less inspiring view than the Mogollon Rim to the north. "You let Coach know about your doctor appointment?" he rumbled a question.

"Yeah," I answered, not trying to out-John Wayne his gruffness. "The office, too." Meaning the school administration office.

He grunted. "Neither of them ask what kind of doctor?"

I grunted back, a bit annoyed.

Megan looked from one of us to the other and giggled.

I smiled at her. She had a cute giggle. She poked me lightly in the ribs, and I grunted again to try to provoke another giggle. Just as cute as the first one.

I tried not to think about having a doctor's appointment with Megan's aunt, the gynecologist.

* * *

Senior history is immediately after and in the same classroom as homeroom, so we were all together, along with most of the other jocks and cheerleaders. At the same time, Mr. Anders took the roll and read announcements, followed by Mr. Mull's exciting lecture about the Hanseatic League.

Jake sat near Joanna, still looking like his pet budgie had died, while the blonde head cheerleader twiddled her fingers at us and dispensed benedictions on her congregation of other cheerleaders. I sat between Megan and Leland Frick, the team cinematographer, king of the outer row. It's amazing that a high school team has a cinematographer, but Lee made it happen by doing the job before anyone thought of telling him not to.

I caught Lee looking at me strangely mid-period and quirked an eyebrow at him. He looked startled, pushed his wire rims back up the beak of his nose and subtly shook his head. Well, if he wanted to tell me something was up, he probably would.

After having dismissed him from my attention, a worry nagged at me. Lee was probably the smartest kid in the senior class. He not only took movies of the football team but still photos for the school newspaper (The Handshake) and was president of the committee that would produce the school annual. On top of that, he had a 4.1 grade point average and had already won some sort of scholarship to the University of Colorado.

And he noticed things, often being the one to call Coach's attention to some weakness or lack in both the home and visitor's teams' preparation or execution. If anyone in the school might be able to figure out something about what had happened to me, it would probably be Leland Frick.

I turned my attention back to Mr. Mull's riveting account of trade among thirteenth-century North German coastal cities, frowning a bit, but I cheered up when I saw Megan reaching toward me. I reached out, too, and our fingers touched in the middle of the aisle between us. I wanted to laugh out loud at her gesture but managed to suppress it to a rather strangled-sounding hiccough.

My middle felt as if I had been tickled, and we smiled at each other. Leland probably saw our antics but Frick him.

The rest of the morning passed normally until meeting Megan outside English class third period, when I almost literally ran into Joanna Linklater. She was seriously leaning on Jake in the middle of the hallway like a cartoon drunk holding up a lamppost.

When Megan and I linked up, four hands in a tangled clasp, Joanna smirked at us.

I tried to ignore her as other students flowed around us, but she spoke in a voice that seemed to have an edge. "Hey, Petey," she cooed. "How's it hanging?"

Megan and I resolved our hand holding to something more conventional, then turned together to let someone else pass us, and I faced the head cheerleader. Jake appeared oblivious, and Megan was frowning.

"Joanna," I said in a mild voice. "I'm not your scratching post." Megan squeezed my hand, and she grinned for a moment.

Joanna frowned, and Jake snorted. Then they moved out of the way, and Megan and I went into class. "Oh, meow, Petey-Pete-Pete," my girlfriend whispered. I squeezed her hand back and tried not to laugh out loud. I probably shouldn't have poked at Ms. Linklater like that, but it had been fun.

*

We hadn't talked about it specifically, but I figured that Megan and I could leave after third period, get something to eat and be at the medical center by 1 p.m. Except, I got a message to come to the school office.

Mystified, and a bit apprehensive, I headed that way as class let out, Megan holding my hand. On the way, we passed Jake and Joanna, standing in line at the snack bar, glaring at each other.

"Wonder what that was about?" Megan asked.

I shrugged. I thought I could guess. With his arm still in a sling, Jake couldn't drive the truck, which I was still driving, anyway. Joanna had a car, but Jake wouldn't really fit in a '71 Beetle, so she was getting bitchy about eating on campus.

"Maybe she doesn't like the brand of kibble they're serving?" I suggested.

Megan giggled, which was what I wanted. “Pete, Petey, Pete,” she said. "So now, it's woof-woof, Joanna?"

I made a noise that wasn't a giggle, and we went in through the big double doors on the admin building.

At the desk, I was handed a note that just said, "Call home." I showed it to Megan, who squeezed my fingertips and made an encouraging noise.

The foyer of the admin building had a phone booth, so I headed over there rather than asking to use the desk phone. I didn't close the door, and Megan stood beside me as I dialed. I held the phone where Megan could hear, too.

Mom answered quickly.

"You wanted me to call home?" I asked.

"Hmm," she murmured. "You didn't mention any doctor appointment." It wasn't an accusation, just a statement. "The school called me to confirm."

"Ah," I stalled. I didn't want to lie to my Mom.

"Dr. Verre is a gynecologist. Is this really an appointment for Megan to find out if she's pregnant?"

"Ah!" I repeated, surprised. "N-not exactly. Mom, she couldn't be—um—. It-it was just one time," I babbled. Well, once before my miracle when I still had the equipment.

Mom snorted. "She most certainly could be from one time, Pete." A pause, then she went on. "You're both eighteen, but any girl who doesn't want to get pregnant should probably be on the pill. Is she there? I hear two people breathing. Let me talk to her."

I handed the phone to Megan, my hand shaking.

"Hey, Mrs. Peterson," she murmured." I heard what you said, uh huh?" She listened a moment, and I couldn't hear what Mom was saying. "I agree, and I know I'm not—uh, because I'm already on the pill, and we used protection besides. Yeah. It's just I need a refill. Uh-huh."

Then she giggled, and I looked at her. "He's standing right beside me, turning red enough to roast marshmallows."

I did hear Mom's laugh, and then they both hung up. Megan turned around and put her arms around me. "She's happy, but you know what, Petey-Petey-Pete?"

"What?" I leaned in for a quick lip smooch. Megan hadn't entirely lied to Mom but didn't seem to have a problem being indirect about the truth.

I was relieved until Megan said, "She's right about girls our age. We should probably both be on the pill."

“Maybe I’m pregnant?” she whispered in my ear before nibbling on it.

We got out of there, heading for Jake’s truck. Down in another part of the parking lot, we could see Jake and Joanna standing near her car in some sort of intense discussion.

“I-I hope that’s not about me,” I murmured to Megan as I helped her mount the driver’s side of the big truck.

“It probably is,” said Megan so off-handedly that I almost missed a step climbing in behind her. I got behind the wheel, and she scooted over next to me.

“That’s not reassuring,” I mentioned as I pulled the heavy door closed.

She shrugged. “In her own way, Joanna thinks she’s helping. The latest story she told the squad this morning is that you’ve always had a pussy. You just never showed it to anyone.”

“I—what?” I felt as if someone had rung my bell, like I’d hit my head against the ground while being tackled.

“It’s ridiculous,” she continued. “But she got the whole squad, even the juniors and alternates, to agree that none of them had seen you nude before last Friday night.”

She snuggled against me. “Even I had to admit that I hadn’t seen you, you know, naked, before then, either.”

She looked up at me, but I kept my eyes on my driving. Getting in and out of school lots was always a hassle, even at noon. We passed Jake and Joanna, got a nod and a wave each from them, and Megan waved back. I turned left, intending that we drive-thru Taco Rey on the way to the clinic.

But Megan wasn’t done. “She demanded that I, you know, describe you there—uh—like how big you were and, and, like that!”

“You—I—she!”

“So I lied,” Megan said calmly. “I said you were enormous, built like that statue of Trigger in Las Vegas. That when we made love, I was afraid you would split me in two!” She giggled. “I made sure they wouldn’t believe that, and we all laughed. A lot.”

‘I’m going to kill her,” I said conversationally.

Megan giggled again. “So you’re upset at her but not at me for my little fib?”

I sighed. “Little fib.”

“Just a tiny one,” she said, holding her finger, almost touching her thumb.

I frowned at her. “Have you ever been tickled until you pissed yourself?” I asked.

“Petey, Pete, Pet,” she said and snuggled closer.

I felt a wet heat flash through me, settling in a spot near the center of my being. I wanted to squirm, but resisted, sure that Megan would know why if I did. I said nothing, but dropped my hand on top of hers and gave her a little squeeze.

*

I drove to the far end of the parking lot at the medical center and started back.

“Don’t… oh, you’re not going to park out here?” Megan asked.

“No, I’ll park near the doors. I just wanted to see what cars are here.”

“Um,” she said agreeably. “Use the single door. It goes into the waiting room without walking in front of everyone.”

“Good to know,” I said. “Would you tell the desk I’m here, then come and get me when they call?” I tried not to whine when I made the request.

“No,” she said, pushing on me to get me to open the truck door and climb down. I sighed and did so, then caught her as she jumped from the running board into my arms.

“Oof,” I complained. “You’re getting heavier.”

“Maybe I’m pregnant?” she whispered in my ear before nibbling on it.

I put her down and kissed her. “Are you trying to make me laugh to cheer me up, or just being crazy?”

“Yeah, no,” she said, wrinkling her nose. That made no sense, so I kissed her again.

We made our way inside and took seats in the waiting room, leaving our displays of affection outside.

There was no sign of Dr. Verre or Granny Marie, and an unfamiliar young woman sat at the reception desk and slid her little window open to demand we check in. Megan got up to do that while I stayed put.

Like on Saturday at the free clinic, a half dozen young women, two obviously pregnant and two with children, took up most of the chairs in the room.

A toddler in a diaper sat near the toy box, banging a large plastic toy shaped like the number three against a wooden boat. No one told him not to, so he kept doing it. He seemed intent on breaking the plastic number. I tried not to watch.

Tak! Tok! Tunk! I wanted to snatch the toys out of his hands and put them back in the toy box.

“Ellery,” said someone, but I didn’t see who had spoken. The boy in the diaper (why was I sure it was a boy?) screwed his face up, ready to cry, when Megan distracted him by returning and sitting down beside me.

“When they call,” she said quietly, “let me go up first. Then you follow and tell the twat at the window that you’re with me.”

I blinked. My girlfriend does not call people such names. “Okay,” I said, trusting that she had a reason. We sat there for a while, and I noticed that Megan had a clipboard with a piece of paper on it. “What’s that?” I asked, but she shook her head.

Someone else got called, and I reached for the clipboard. This time Megan let me have it, but reluctantly.

It had a pen attached, and I realized it was a patient information form. I took the pen and was about to start filling it out, but Megan shook her head very slightly, so I stopped and started reading it.

The first section was pretty typical for this sort of thing, I supposed: name, address, next of kin, insurance carrier. Then a long list of questions on medical history, like diseases and immunizations I had had and any allergies I might have.

I looked at Megan curiously. Why didn’t she want me to fill this out? The receptionist was going to ask for it when I got called up.

She reached out and tapped the bottom section.

I looked at it and felt the world go a bit wobbly. The first question was, “Are you pregnant?” Further down was another doozy, “When was your last period?”

I passed the clipboard back to Megan. She nodded. “You fill it out?” I suggested. She shook her head but kept the clipboard.

We sat for a few more minutes, then the woman at the desk slid the little window open and called, “Gayle Peterson?”

Oh.

Megan stood and went forward, touching me on the wrist to indicate I should follow. I did a good impression of a gallows shuffle, but the room wanted to spin around me. I swallowed hard several times.

Megan put the clipboard with the still unfilled-out form in a receptacle, then leaned down to speak through the window without anyone else in the room hearing her. Well, I could.

“This is ‘Hunter,’” she said. “He’s with me.”

“Does Doctor know, Miss Petersen?” the receptionist asked.

Megan answered sharply, “She’s my aunt. She knows.”

“Go through that door…” But we were already moving in the required direction, Megan towing me by the wrist.

Once into the hallway beyond the door, she whispered to me, “Gayle is your first name? No wonder you go by Pete!”

“No,” I tried to explain. “It’s Gaylen, not Gayle. My grandfather’s name was Galen without the y. And Hunter is my other grandfather.”

Megan slapped a hand over her mouth, and I knew she was giggling.

I couldn’t blame her. I rolled my eyes at her, cocked my head first one way then the other ,and opened my eyes and mouth wide like I was astonished.

“Stop, Petey, stop!” she gasped. “I’m gonna bust up!”

But Granny Marie appeared at a door along the hallway. “In here, Miss Hunter,” she said, “I have to take your vitals.”

I blinked. Miss Hunter? Oh yeah, Dr. Verre had started calling me that last time. “Um,” I said. “I’m confused.”

“In here now,” said Granny firmly. “You can be confused later.”

Megan was having trouble keeping a straight face, so I glared at her.

Granny measured and weighed me again. Still 5'7", but I'd lost a couple of pounds. I might have to go back to lifting weights which I hated. My temperature, blood pressure and pulse rate seemed to satisfy her.

Then she got personal. "Have you started your period?" she asked.

"No," I answered sharply. She made a noise like a chicken clucking.

"Doctor thinks you will sometime in the next week to ten days," she supplied. "Any cramps, bloating, swelling of your ankles, mood swings, migraines, low back pain?"

"No," I said again. "What's with the catalog?"

"Just stuff you can expect."

Megan was having trouble keeping a straight face, so I glared at her.

Granny looked contrite if Megan didn't. "Sorry about the bimbo at the desk using the wrong name. We're keeping your records under Jill Hunter for the moment. But Quirkney didn't get the memo."

"Quirkney?" I repeated.

"The girl at the desk," said Granny. "How about you, Megan?" she asked, looking at her great-granddaughter. "Do you know when your next period starts?"

Megan nodded. "Probably the 13th, like next Wednesday or Thursday?"

"You pretty regular?"

Megan nodded sort of sideways. "Pretty regular. Always less than thirty days, sometimes as early as twenty-five or twenty-six."

"Mmp," said Granny. She turned back to me. "You'll have to work out your own calendar. And since you're a jockette," she snorted, "be aware that exercise can delay the arrival of your period, but that doesn't mean you get to skip the fun part."

Ice seemed to be melting on my head and running ice water down my back.

"She means PMS, the pre-menstrual stuff she listed," Megan supplied.

"All of it?" I tried not to let my voice creak.

They laughed. "Everyone's different, and every time can be different." Granny amplified the thought. "Don't worry. You've got twenty or thirty years to get used to it."

The old lady seemed to be enjoying my discomfort, but she moved toward what seemed like it might be a connecting door to another room. "You two sit out here while I go help Doctor get ready for your ultrasound. And Miss hunter, take off your clothes and put on this gown, opening in the front again."

"Hah!" I grunted—damn gown. "I don't want to do this," I said to Megan.

"You don't have to," she said.

I looked at her suspiciously.

"You're eighteen, Petey. You're a grown… person. You don't really have to do anything you don't want to. You don't have to wear this gown. You don't have to go to school. You don't have to play football. You don't have to take care of yourself or let other people help you." She picked up the gown and handed it to me. "Put on the gown, Petey, even though you don't have to and you don't want to."

I sighed and started by kicking off my shoes. As I took off each item of clothing, Megan folded them neatly and put them in a cabinet. I'd been naked in front of Megan before, so it was embarrassing but not fatal.

Finally, I stood there in the gown with the opening in the front. I pulled it closed and tied the three little strings that kept it that way. From somewhere, Megan had produced a pair of pink flip-flops that were close to my size. Normally when I wear flip-flops, they are enormous, flapping around on my feet and making me sound like the ghost of Jacob Marley's pool boy.

Megan came close and gave me a squeeze and a giggle. I returned the squeeze.

Someone knocked on the inner door, and Granny's voice asked. "Gowned?"

Megan and I both answered, "Yes."

Granny came through the door then held it open for both of us to enter. Megan's aunt, Dr. Verre, greeted us. "Good to see you, Miss Hunter, Margaret." I blinked. Megan's real first name is Margaret, and I knew that.

But this was an office with a desk, bookcases, and diplomas hanging on the wall. There was an examining table too, and Dr. Verre said I should sit there.

I climbed up on the table and crossed my legs to keep the gown decently closed. On the counter next to the table sat a machine that looked like a cross between a welders rig, a vacuum cleaner and a television set.

"I've been trained with the machine," Dr. Verre said, "so I'm going to do the ultrasound myself. That way, we don't have to involve a technician in keeping confidences."

I felt a bit of relief at that, a worry I didn't even know about gone. I smiled and thanked her, and she called me Miss Hunter again.

Dr. Verre had me get up and lie down on the examining table, with a blanket under me and one each across my legs and my upper chest. Then she spread a clear sort of slime on my middle and lower abdomen. "This won't hurt," she said, "but the sonic jelly always feels cold."

She was right about that. She spread the cold jelly with a thing like a Dremel tool that made a sound like one, too. She worked and talked at the same time, not looking at what she was doing but at the television screen that was angled such that I couldn't see anything except fast-moving shadows.

"We got your lab work back, Miss Hunter," she told me. "Everything was nominal or within norms. You seem to be a remarkably healthy young woman, in fact." She flashed me a grin with a hint of Megan's kind of mischief to let me know that she knew that wasn't as reassuring as it would be to someone else.

That made me swallow hard. Then she hit a ticklish spot, and I forgot all about it. Trying not to laugh made it come out as giggles, and that set Megan off, sitting in the chair behind Dr. Verre's desk across the room. Granny snorted, and even Dr. Verre chuckled.

"It never fails," she commented. "The most interesting places are the most ticklish, and I keep having to come back and press harder."

That almost got a squeal out of me, but I caught my breath and held a hand over my mouth. "Almost done, dear," she murmured.

She pressed some buttons, and across the room, a Xerox machine came to life and soon was printing out pages that looked like a Rorschach test conducted by moonlight.

"That wasn't so bad," Dr. Verre offered a bit of professional sympathy.

Behind her, Megan piped up. "I didn't feel a thing, Aunt Louva," which made us all laugh.

I guess the thing in the corner was a laser printer. Dr. Verre and Granny grabbed the printouts and sorted them while I climbed down off the table, and Megan and I moved to the chairs on the visitors' side of the desk. Keeping the gown closed was a pain, but I again managed by crossing my legs which seemed to amuse Megan for some reason.

I felt vaguely clean but sticky below the waist and was again plotting how to get a shower in the school locker rooms when Dr. Verre sat across from me and began going through the images she had taken of my insides. They were all gray on gray blobs with curved upper and lower edges and straight diagonal sides.

"I want to show you some things," she said. She used a pen as a pointer. "That lighter gray background is your pelvis; this dark shadow is your uterus, this smaller one your bladder. This knobby blob is an ovary.: She pulled out another shadowy sheet. "Here's your other ovary, both quite normal looking. The loops above the ovaries are your tubes."

I didn't know if I wanted to be shown this stuff, but I could not seem to look away.

She pointed at a cylinder shape and a sort of bright ring. "Your vagina and your cervix, which is the opening to your uterus. If you ever have a baby, it will have to come out through that little ring which is about as big around as a thumb right now." She paused. "Fortunately, the cervix is quite elastic and can stretch to be several inches across."

She went on, and a curious thing seemed to be happening. Her voice got further and further away, and I started losing the thread of what she was saying. "These are your uterine muscles," I barely made out. "They're what flex and contract and cause cramps when you have your period."

I heard Megan say a long, drawn-out, "Ohhhh," beside me, then Granny said, "I think we lost her."

It got very dark and noisy, like the inside of a thunderstorm. Something poked me in the back, then Megan asked, "Petey?" as I slid out of the chair and onto the floor.

“Petey’s tough. She plays football.”

I’m not sure how they did it but the three women got me stood up then lying again on the examining table with folded blankets under head and foot while Granny again took my vitals.

Dr. Verre was apologetic. “I’m so sorry, Miss Hunter. I had information I wanted to give you but I wasn’t properly recognizing the emotional impact this would have on you.”

I blinked at her, not sure just how I felt about what had happened. Once in a junior league soccer game after heading the ball for a goal, I had to sit down on the grass. This felt a bit like that but without the headache. “It’s okay,” I murmured. “I’m okay.”

Megan stood to one side, spreading another white cotton blanket over me while Granny worked the blood pressure cuff on my arm and listened to my pulse. Dr. Verre had already looked in my eyes with her tiny flashlight and now stood near the foot end of the table.

Megan gave my hand a squeeze and spoke up. “Petey’s tough. He plays football.” It would have sounded more commendatory if she hadn’t giggled after saying it and if I were sure she had said ‘he’.

“Hmm,” said Dr. Verre. “That’s something I wanted to talk to you about.” She moved closer to the table and continued. “Miss Hunter, reach across with your right hand and grasp your left wrist.”

I glanced at Granny. “Um, it’s in use right now?”

Granny flashed an amazing amount of teeth at me and let go of my hand. “I’m done,” she said. “I can confirm that you are completely with us now.”

I shook off the blanket covering my arms and reached across to close my right hand grip around my left wrist.

“Does the long finger of your right hand touch your thumb?”

I held both hands up where I could see them. “Uh? Yes?”

“Do they overlap? And by how much?”

Dr. Verre could plainly see my hands and my odd grip, but I answered the questions anyway.

“Yes, they touch, maybe overlap just a bit. A fingernail, maybe?.”

“Mm-hmm,” she agreed. “That means you have a light frame, a skeleton that is thinner and lighter than average. If they just touched or almost touched, that would be a medium frame. Not touching at all with a gap would mean you had a heavy frame.”

She tapped my hands with a finger and I let my grip fall apart. “You have a light frame,” she repeated then turned to my girlfriend. “Megan, try the same thing.”

Megan looked at me, her eyes wide, but I didn’t say anything. She did the gesture, grabbing her left wrist with her right hand. We all could see the result, but Megan said it anyway. “They almost, barely, sort of touch, no overlap.”

“Medium frame, or medium light,” said Dr. Verre. “Megan has a heavier frame and bigger bones than you do, Miss Hunter.” She said bluntly. “Do you want her playing football?”

I frowned. “Megan doesn’t have my muscles,” I pointed out, flexing my arms.

“Mmphm!” said the doctor. “How long do you think you’re going to keep those muscles with your ovaries putting out estrogen?”

I blinked, my eyes felt hot. I stared at her. Why was she saying these things to me? Was I going to start crying? What the heck!

“I showed you your insides and you fainted,” she said and I flinched. “You’re not a man, Miss Hunter, you’re not even a boy. You’re a woman. And women do not play football for many good reasons. Your bones are lighter, your insides are arranged differently, more vulnerable with less internal padding.”

She sighed and gave me a sour look. “Really, no one should play football. It’s a barbaric holdover from the Roman arena, a kind of artificial war. You’re not a gladiator, Miss Hunter.” She wiped her eyes. Megan handed me a tissue and I wiped mine, too.

“I could stop you from playing,” Dr. Verre said.

Ice shot up my spine.

“I could tell the school about your condition. They almost certainly would not let you play.” She paused and I held my breath. “But I won’t do that. You’re a grown woman, you can make your own decisions.”

“Ahh,” I could breathe again and something occurred to me. “You could maybe give me something. Male hormones to make it easier to keep my strength….”

She glared at me. “You know I’m not going to do that.”

I shrugged. “It was worth asking.”

Megan squeezed my hand and gave me a look, one third empathy, one third reproach, and one third amusement.

“This isn’t East Germany,” said Dr. Verre. “We don’t poison people so they can win athletic contests.”

She went to her desk and sat down. “I will give you a prescription for some birth control pills. They will help make your period a little more bearable but we will probably have to adjust the dosage as things happen.” She pulled out a pad, and started writing. “As a bonus, they likely will keep you from getting pregnant should you decide to…experiment.”

“I don’t think that’s going to happen,” I said firmly, ignoring Megan’s giggle.

She passed the form she had filled out to me and I looked at it. It was made out for the patient name ‘Jill Hunter’. I asked, “Where can I get this filled?”

“Any pharmacy in town will fill it. You won’t need an ID.”

The idea of going in with a prescription for birth control pills to fill made my hand shake. And where did she get the name Jill?

“I’ll write a renewal for yours too, Megan,” said the doctor, working on another sheet from the pad. “You can be the one to get both of them filled if you go to different pharmacies, in case Miss Hunter chickens out.”

She cocked her head and looked at me. “Just don’t faint again.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I agreed, turning red.

“I have to see my next patient,” she added. “You can get dressed in here and leave by my private door. Granny will show you.” She came around her desk and took both my hands in hers. “Good luck,” she said. “Rah, Lions!” And she grinned at me!

I mumbled “Friendly Pride!” and shook her hands, both at once. My eyes were burning again. She knew how much playing football meant to me. I guess she had to try to talk me out of it, but she knew.

Granny had brought my clothes from the other room, then left to help get the next patient ready, I supposed.

I got dressed quickly. Everything had been a bit unreal to me and I was struggling with the idea that maybe I didn’t have to play football. Not play football? I sighed. It wasn’t just playing, I had to win—for Jake and the other guys.

Megan read the two prescriptions again before putting them into her purse. “Should I start calling you ‘Jill’?” she teased.

“Don’t you dare,” I warned and she giggled. “Let’s get out of here.”

I led the way to the back door which had its own little alcove off the main hall but then neither of us could figure out how to get it open. It had a push bar like most doors in big buildings but it wouldn’t budge.

“Stupid,” I was just saying as Granny came up behind us, reached over Megan, flicked the lock located high up on the door, and opened it for us.

Megan paused to trade hugs and I said, “Thanks, Mrs. Duquesne,” remembering that it was pronounced DuShane.

“I told you before, just call me Granny, everyone does,” she said, giving me my own hug as she pressed her face up against mine. She smelled of sandalwood and cherries. Cherries?

I laughed and held the door open for Megan as we left, but Granny handed Megan a small bag before waving goodbye, saying, “Take care of your girlfriend, don’t let her go crazy or think she’s dying!” Then she laughed.

That made me blush again when I realized that she meant me as Megan’s girlfriend. Okay, that did not need thinking about at the moment. Still, why would I think I was dying?

But I saw Megan looking in the bag when we headed to the truck and I distracted myself by asking, “What’s in it?”

Megan laughed. “Stuff you might need.”

I had a bad feeling as I unlocked the door and helped her into the cab on the driver’s side. “Like?” I asked.

“Napkins,” she said.

“Huh?”

“Sanitary napkins, you know, Kotex. Also some panty liners, tampons, a bottle of Midol.” She grinned at me. “And a bunch of those pamphlets doctors hand out to twelve-year-old girls.”

She pulled one out and showed me. The title read, “So you’re having your first period?”

My face burned, but I was already in overload. Even so, I had to ask. “What’s Midol?”

The ball popped out like a 5-cent sour cherry gumball.

Friday night after running the gauntlet of the locker room again, I joined the team on the sidelines. This was another home game, thankfully. I hadn’t yet come up with a plan for what to do about the locker room of an away game.

But we were at Friendly Field with the big silly painting of a cartoon lion on the end of the bleachers. It always looked vaguely like Snagglepuss to me.

And there were the cheerleaders holding up a banner for us to run under, Joanna at one end and Kimby Quintera (the other tall girl on the squad) at the other.

“Rah! Lions!” the cheerleaders shouted and we roared back, “Friendly Pride!” as we ran under the banner and took the field against the Bulldogs.

I saw that Leland Frick had filmed our ceremony from behind the team bench and I gave him a little wave. The huge smile I got back seemed out of proportion, but then I never felt that Frick got all the approval he should from the team. I saw that Lee was working with the radio guys from KZG-FM, the station that carried our games.

We had a brief conference with Coach Wilson, agreeing that we would stick with the plan for Dave to try passing in the first half and Jake would stay out of the game with his injured hand until he might—Wilson said might— get into the game on defense. That way he could still have a solid season with no missed games. That would look good to recruiters.

The Bulldogs won the coin toss and chose to kick off. The ball landed in front of me, I caught it on a bounce and started upfield, the team falling in around me in a wedge. I didn’t turn on the speed right away, letting them get into position.

When I felt my protection was as good as it would get, I picked out a route through my guys and the mob of defenders, and yelled, “Drive!”

Then it was broken-field running, quick changes of direction, always landing on the right foot and watching my sides. I didn’t stop, pulling up in the endzone a bit winded and surprised I had managed to do that.

It was always a rush, though, and I loved it.

Random Bulldogs who had been chasing me came up and either scowled or grinned at me. “How can you run like that?” One of them asked. “Your ass was moving like a cannonball doing the watusi.”

I wasn’t sure what he meant by that so I just shrugged.

Some of the Lions caught up just as the ref moved to the middle of the field and held his arms over his head to indicate a touchdown. The hometown crowd was cheering and Joanna and her crew were trying to keep them excited.

Dave Garcia came up to me, his grin a little uneven. “Shit,” he said bluntly. “I forgot you can run like that.”

“It’s my job,” I said then jumped when he slapped me on the ass.

“We’re going for two, on thirty, Up on a fader.”

I nodded and followed him into the huddle, even though he’d just told me what the play would be. We were going for a two-point conversion. Upsteen, our tight end, would take two steps forward into the endzone then one right and turn to receive the ball.

Not a lot for me to do on such a play and all Upp had to do was catch the snap pass. Matt, the tackle, and I would guard the hole and block anyone from trying to knock down the pass, but it would be a quick play that almost takes longer to describe than to execute. With Jake it would be almost a slam dunk four or five yards.

We only needed three and it went like clockwork, Garcia got rid of the ball almost as quick as the snap, and Up pulled it in with those long fingers. The scoreboard read 0-8 and there was much rejoicing.

I managed to slap both Dave and Upsteen on the ass during our trot to midfield, and I felt good about the world and football, and my place in both of them. Honestly, the excitement and adrenalin had filled me and I forgot that I had any problems at all.

We kicked off and the Bulldogs brought it back to us, taking their first down at the 45. This was defense and my job on safety was to chase down anyone with the ball who got past the line.

The ‘Dogs came at us, three quick, short passes and a quarterback dive and they had a new first down. It was on!

Defense is not my favorite part of the game, but I said a little prayer of thanks for being on the field where I loved to be, playing football with the rest of the guys.

It took the ‘Dogs nine more short, sharp plays to get into scoring position just inside our twenty. Third and six they pulled a pass play, a bullet down the middle to their looping weak-side receiver. He pulled it in and I was the only thing between him and a goal. I hit him around the hips before he had the ball secure, but after he had taken one step in possession.

The ball popped out like a 5-cent sour cherry gumball. I scooped it in and made it back to the forty before getting nailed by their free safety, a kid who wore a red-and-black 17 on his jersey to match the same number, blue-on-yellow that I wore.

His last name was Ginger, according to the jersey. He gave me a hand to help me stand and said, “If I hadn’t stopped you, you would have scored again.”

“Damn right I would have,” I said. “You were the last ‘Dog in the race!”

“Good run, seventeen,” he said.

“Good tackle, seventeen,” I responded.

We bumped fists, grinning like fools and trotted back to our own huddles.

Dave patted me on the helmet and called me Scooter. “We got the ball and we’re gonna score,” he said, sounding confident. But three plays later, we were on their 45, stalled out. It was time to punt. Dave didn’t like doing it, but he knew he wasn’t a strong enough kicker for a field goal, so he placed the drop where it would give them no real advantage.

That Ginger kid turned out to be the ‘Dogs’ punt return specialist. He snagged Dave’s kick on an awkward bounce, tucked it into his chest and wiggled his way through our defenders, coming at me like a Pete-seeking missile.

He was fast and slippery, but so am I. He faked a turn with his shoulders, trying for an angle to pass by me. We came together body-to-body, but my leg was in front of his and we both went down on the grass.

We stood up, leaning on our knees, panting like wolves. “Payback,” I grunted.

“…Is a bitch,” he agreed. But he added, “And I hear you’re one, too!”

I wasn’t sure what he’d said. “Huh?” I inquired. He didn’t answer, just flashed me a freckled grin before trotting off to his teammates.

I stood there staring at him. It was the end of the quarter and we had to swap ends, so I didn’t actually have to go anywhere, just stay where I was and wait for the team to find me.

The visiting cheerleaders were bouncing around urging their guys on. “Bite’em! Bulldogs! Mow them Lawns!”

Lawns? That was a pretty clever cheer, it wasn’t far off the local pronunciation of ‘lions’.

I grinned, distracted. Then I glanced at our cheering squad. Joanna and Kimby were anchoring the line for a crack-the-whip move that sent two of the smaller squadettes flying. Megan, too solid for a flyer and not big enough to anchor was just bouncing and dancing around, showing off her pom-pom science.

Something nagged at me, but the game had caught up and the ‘Dogs were ready to play. I needed another chance to talk to Ginger, but I didn’t see how it could happen.

“Shave them ‘Dogs,” said Dave as we lined up in defensive positions. That got a few grins, too. Not as clever as “Mow the Lawns,” but Dave meant it just as sincerely.

Again the visitors drove to just our twenty, but this time the down situation wasn’t favorable, so they elected to kick a field goal. It went in and the Bulldogs had their first score.

The Black and Red lined up to kickoff and I kept my eye on seventeen. He was probably their fastest runner, he’d be downfield in Lion territory quick, but if I got close enough to him to talk, maybe I could find out why he called me a bitch.

Did he know something?

“What was that shit you were saying, calling me a bitch?” I demanded.

I didn’t get much of a chance to talk to the Bulldogs #17 in the rest of the quarter, because things got very busy on field. We took the kickoff and set up our flying wedge again with me in the middle, but the ‘Dogs had seen this before and were prepared; they’d put their heaviest guys on field and broke our wedge near their 35-yard line.

This time it was one of the bruiser ‘Dogs that took me down. When I saw he was going to be too close to avoid, I jinked around him and slipped under his arm to fall sideways and avoid being crushed when he hit the ground next to me.

“Pussy,” he snarled, as he stood up, but he was smiling. Normal-on-field trash talk, I supposed. Not the kind of thing Ginger had been saying. I lay there with a fake grin until the ref approached, then accepted a hand from Dave Garcia to help me up.

“Good run,” said Dave.

I grunted as deeply as I could manage. It was frustrating for the other #17 to be so close, and yet we couldn’t talk. Dave put an arm across my shoulders and we trotted into the huddle. “Fake reverse handoff, sixty-three,” he chose from the playbook. Then we all did the hokey Lion’s Roar, slapping helmets and butts before taking our positions.

The play involved me going behind the QB at the snap and taking a fake handoff on our weak side, then Dave passed to Upsteen on the right. If nothing went wrong, we would get a small gain, with luck a bigger one.

It went flawlessly, Upp took the pass (a bit high), and stumbled four or five steps to an eight-yard gain before going down. Ginger, playing deep safety for the ‘Dogs, was all over our man, but it was a good play for everyone.

New huddle, “Fake handoff, fifty three, forty four,” said Dave. This was kind of the reverse of the previous play, a handoff faked on the strong side with the pass going to our left, while Bill Gorman, our fullback, added a convincer by coming to the line on my side instead of blocking for Dave.

Bill and Matt hit the line, opening a beautiful hole for me. Too bad I didn’t have the ball. I went through the motions and almost got tackled. Ginger was right there, grinning at me. But Dave’s pass got knocked out of the receiver’s hands, and we were third and two, twenty-eight yards out.

I knew we could run that same play again, only actually give me the ball and I could pick up the two, easy. But it was Dave’s call, and we were supposed to be trying to establish a passing game for the first half. Instead, we took a one-yard loss on what should have been a softside pitchout to Bill.

It was Dave’s first near-sacking, and he didn’t like it. Fourth down. We could bring in a kicker to go for a field goal, but frankly, that ain’t Lions-style. This deep in their territory, we weren’t afraid of giving up the ball, and why settle for three points?

Dave called a play that looked a lot like the previous pitchout, but when Bill hit the line, he already had the ball, and Dave was still in the pocket pretending to look for an open receiver. But Bill made less than three yards on the weak side play, and we had to give the ‘Dogs the ball.

Three plays later, the tables were turned. Their QB had thrown the bomb to Ginger and the speedy little ‘Dog almost got past me, I had to chase him down, taking him at the heels from behind.

But we were alone, almost in the middle of the field, by ourselves. “What was that shit you were saying, calling me a bitch?” I demanded as we dusted ourselves off.

He laughed! “The bushwah our cheers got from yours is that you’re really a chick. That a hoot?” He trotted off to the gratz from his teammates, ‘cause the ball was now on our thirty-eight.

I stood there, not saying anything, while the Lions gathered around me. “Good tackle,” several said. “I bet he didn’t expect you to catch up to him,” Upp remarked.

I still didn’t say anything, just nodding and smiling while I thought. It had to be Joanna’s doing. Why was she messing with me? She’d told her own squad my secret but, according to Megan, no one had believed her. Now she had evidently spread the story to the Bulldoggettes, and they had told their guys about me.

How far would it spread? Would someone decide they needed to prove or disprove it? How could it not already be known to my own teammates?

I hardly knew what happened in the rest of the first half. I know I walked around, I spoke to people, took part in plays on the field. But inwardly, I was wrapped up in my own problems. I was angry that anyone would be doing this to me, and hurt that it was Joanna, who I had every reason to be considered a friend.

And I was anxious that my secret was already out there, my only shield from discovery being that the truth of the matter was just so unbelievable.

The Dogs continued a lightning drive to our goal, scoring on a snap pass to #17 right on the goal line. All he had to do then was fall the right direction to make it a touchdown. Catching that pass, though, was something Ginger evidently could do that was an unreliable feat for me.

My small, flimsy hands did not react well to the impact of a pound of leather and air hurled by someone like Jake or Dave. Last year, I dropped caught passes almost as many times as I’d been able to hang onto them. This year, so far, Coach and my quarterbacks had avoided putting me into that situation. Even in practice. Jake and Dave avoided throwing to me.

I wiped my face and realized I was crying. We lined up to stop the ‘Dogs from getting their conversion. They tried a kick and Upp leaped high enough to turn the effort aside. But a glance at the scoreboard told a tale, Visitors 9, Home 8. For the first time this season, the Lions trailed their opponents. Only by one point, but seeing that did nothing to stop my tears.

The rest of the team began lining up to take the kickoff, and I was wandering in that direction when the whistle blew for the end of the half.

The cheerleaders poured onto the field from both sides, half time being their time to put on a show. Ball players, including me, trudged toward the gym. The rest of the Lions didn’t appear as glum as I felt. Dave slapped me on the helmet as he passed by. I hadn’t pulled it off because I didn’t want anyone to see I had been crying.

“Second half,” Dave crowed. “Time for Petey to shine!”

“Oh, shit,” I said. I’d forgotten Coach Wilson’s strategy of letting Dave play a passing game first half, then me running with the ball in the second half. My high confidence had been shattered. Wasn’t I the best halfback in our league—maybe in all of Division IV statewide?

Maybe not.

Megan was there, running up to me before I reached the gym doors. I pulled off my helmet now and shook hair, sweat and tears out of my eyes. Behind us, the cheerleaders were singing, “Boom-Chika-Boom!” as they bounced around in front of the stands.

“Petey-Pete-Pete,” Megan said, in a voice hoarse from shouting, then she pulled my face down for a kiss.

The stands near us were going wild. But I was hearing a chorus from the cheer squad. “Don’t you just love her?” they sang. And I wasn’t sure if they meant Megan—or me.

I wasn’t going to start crying was I?

I left Megan outside the doors of the gym, staggered into the locker room and almost turned around. The smell hit me like a wet towel thrown over my head, reeking of sweat and aggression. I don’t know what sort of expression I had, but I was afraid that I might be about to throw up. Did the guys always smell this bad after a game? At least they weren’t naked.

Coach Wilson was standing on one of the benches. “Nine to eight is the weirdest score I’ve ever seen in a football game,” he complained.

There was some nervous laughter, but no one was happy about the score. Jake in particular looked daggers at almost everyone. Dave had a stricken expression, like he’d just realized he’d dropped his pizza slice on the dog. Somehow, seeing the two of them so upset hit me hard.

I turned away and stared at the floor. My eyes burned. I wasn’t going to start crying was I?

Lee Frick moved closer to me. He appeared concerned instead of upset, and he was looking right at me. “It’s okay, Pete,” he murmured. “You did good out there.”

I shrugged, unable to think of what to say. Surrounded by three of the tallest guys in the room, I felt invisible¬¬—except Lee was staring right at me. If he didn’t stop that, I probably was going to cry, and I couldn’t imagine anything worse.

Coach had some nice things to say first. That we’d played good defense, made clean tackles, hadn’t had a single penalty called. He praised my kick return that ended in a touchdown. “We’re going to give you more chances to run in the second half, Pete,” he promised. I nodded without meeting his eye. With big people standing around me, I would have had to lean sideways to see his face.

Dave and Upp got pats on the back for their conversion. “As sweet a short pass as anyone could want,” he said. Upp grinned but Garcia shrugged. Jake nudged him, and Dave managed a quiet, “Thanks, Coach.”

“And that’s it!” Wilson suddenly roared. Everybody jumped. “We didn’t score another point in the first half!”

I covered my face with my hands, certain that I was crying.

“Let me remind everyone that scoring points is how we win football games,” Coach said. “We didn’t score enough points! If we go back out there in the second half and do no better than we did in the first half, we will lose this football game!”

“No-oh!” someone moaned, and I was relieved to realize it wasn’t me.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Coach had to raise his voice over the noise the guys were making. “We did good out there. It was Dave’s first game at quarterback, and it worked, it worked. Matt, Upp, Bill, Pete, everyone did the jobs they were asked to do. We all did good.”

Mild cheering from the guys—no one was sure if they were supposed to feel good or not because Coach still looked and sounded angry.

“But we need to do better,” he suddenly roared.

“Do better,” someone agreed, and it turned into a chant with everyone shouting, “Do better!” to foot-stomping and banging on lockers.

It got comical, and I went quickly from near tears to laughing my head off and joining in the shouting.

Coach went from egging us on with arm gestures to motioning for quiet, and as the chant died down someone yelled, “We need to let the little guy run with the ball more.” (Meaning me—the smallest player on the starting team.)

Coach stabbed a finger at the guy, then tapped his own nose. “Yes!”

He turned toward me. “It’s got to be a running game in the second half. You up for it, Pete?”

I nodded and shouted, “Yes, sir!”

“That okay with you, Dave?” he asked Garcia. “Hand-offs, laterals, maybe even let Pete take the snap, too…” he made a circular wave with a fist, “mix it up?”

“Yes, sir!” Dave agreed.

Me take a snap? We’d done it in practice, but never in a real game.

“This okay with the rest of you mooks?”

They all roared, “Yes, sir!”

I still didn’t know what a mook was. Coach got some of his dialog from old movies. Speaking of which….

“Hey, Mr. A-Vee,” he said, turning to Frick. “We gonna have movies of this glorious game tomorrow?”

“I’ll work all night,” Lee promised. A-Vee for Audio-Visual was almost everyone’s nickname for Lee.

“You hear that, guys,” Coach shouted. “Lee is going to put in an all-nighter so we can watch ourselves tomorrow while we eat pizza and wings!”

Everyone cheered! Lee blushed. He didn’t usually see so much enthusiasm for what he did. I grinned at him, and his blush went up into his blond hair and down under his shirt. I had to laugh.

“But!” Said Coach. “But we have to win! No celebrations without a win, and no pizza without a celebration!”

There was a lot of raucous noise after that, and Coach yelling, “I mean it! No pizza without a win!”

The same guy as before, Simon, the left guard, shouted, “No worries, Coach. We got this! We give the ball to Pete, and the little guy runs their legs off!”

General laughter at that, and embarrassment from me. I couldn’t blush as brightly as someone pale like Lee, but I knew my face was red as we gathered in a huddle to chant, “Rah! Lions!” before we ran back out on the field.

The cheer squad had pumped up the crowd, and we got a huge wave of clapping and cheering as we took the field. Megan turned around and waved at me, and I waved back. Then Joanna waved—in a very girly way with her wrist bent and fingers flapping. I pulled my hand down quick and glared at her.

Before I could do more, Coach Wilson called me aside and leaned in close so I could hear him over the crowd. “We’re kicking off this half. They always have that Ginger kid return kickoffs and punts.”

“Number 17, just like….”

He interrupted, waving a hand toward the ‘Dogs. “Yeah, he’s their right halfback, too. They’ll probably try to make a wedge around him like we do for you.”

“Huh,” I said. I was beginning to think I knew what was coming.

“You’re fast, Pete,” Coach said. I nodded, like we both knew that, and it didn’t need saying.

He finished, and it was just what I expected. “I want you to get downfield there as fast as you can, before their big guys can shield him. Get in there and take him out, before he can bring the ball to us.” He gave me a grim look.

I nodded to show I understood what he was asking me to do. “Nothing dirty, just a clean hit,” I said to make it plain.

He gave one sharp nod. “He’s probably the only guy in the league who could outrun you. Longer legs.” He clapped me on the shoulder, and we said nothing more.

“What did coach want with you?” asked Dave as we took our places.

I shrugged. “Just a pep talk.”

Dave grinned a little sideways. “You were looking like something was bothering you last half of the second quarter. Girlfriend trouble?”

I shook my head. “Not my girlfriend.” He laughed as if that were a witty thing to say. I had no idea why he thought that was funny. Some guys just laugh to hear their heads rattle.

Our best kicker was Jake. Unlike some teams, we didn’t have a specialist from Mexico or someplace where they played soccer. I guess I hadn’t been paying attention, but there Jake was on the field, and now I remembered seeing Coach Pasco cutting the bandage off his hand. I scowled at him, but he just grinned.

You don’t need your hands to do a kickoff, but what if he ended up having to make a tackle? I lined up in my position, just left of the kicker’s lane. I shifted my glare downfield, trying to pick out my ‘Dog, number 17. There he was, mirroring my set-up midfield.

I waited for the kick. I intended to get to him quick and hit him hard, as soon as he had the ball. I didn’t want to hurt anyone, but I would be thinking of Joanna when I made the tackle. I needed the edge of mean that thought gave me.

"You had the ball! I had to tackle you!"

The 'Dogs made room for Ginger to get to the ball, and when he had it, they began to form their wedge around him. But I was already downfield, slaloming between the big blockers. I hit Number Seventeen around the hips, putting my shoulder into his belly, using my momentum to bear him backward, falling on top of him. I dug at the ball, but he didn't let go.

He made a noise, like "Uff!" when I hit him, then a higher pitched "Ahhh!" as he fell, and another grunt when I landed on him. He was still making noises when the refs got there.

I made out words he screamed into my ear, "My ankle! You stepped on my ankle!"

I rolled off him, letting the refs take the ball and place it, as the Bulldog coach ran onto the field and knelt beside him.

"Ah, jeez," I muttered.

Ginger pointed at me, then at his foot, and the refs put their heads together. Coach Wilson was beside me. "Don't worry," Wilson assured me, "It was a clean tackle."

"He says I stepped on him," I told the coach. My eyes were burning. I honestly didn't know if I had.

He shook his head. "Couldn't have," he said. "You fell together." After a moment, he added, "Wouldn't matter if you had. It was a clean tackle. Shit happens."

I looked up at him. I was still in a crouch halfway through standing up. Coach avoided being vulgar around us players, but he didn't seem to realize what he had said.

Two 'Dogs were helping Ginger off the field. He was hopping on one leg, but he grinned at me. "Payback," he said, reminding me of what he'd said before when he called me a bitch.

I stood up, facing him. "You had the ball! I had to tackle you!" I hoped I didn't sound shrill, but I was mad at him for getting hurt, and I could feel tears in my eyes.

He nodded, still grinning, but his coach glared at me.

"You did good, Pete," Coach said as the refs took the ball and placed it near one of the hash marks on the field. "He's pretty much their best scorer, and you took him out of the game."

That didn't help. I kept my face down as I joined the other Lions for a huddle. "I didn't mean for him to get hurt," I muttered to myself. Several guys were giving me slaps on the shoulder, helmet or butt.

"Way to go," Dave said. "You took out their 'Pete'!"

I didn't feel good, but the home crowd loved it. "Leash them 'Dogs," the cheerleaders screamed.

My stomach hurt, and my eyes still burned. We were on defense, and I had to pay attention, but my mind was not in the game.

The 'Dogs came at us with blood in their eye, but they were a thinner team than the Lions and missing their speediest player hurt them. Ginger hadn't been just their running back. He was an effective pass receiver, too, something I wasn't good at.

I got my mind back on winning this game and slapped down a pass that would have given them a first down. They stalled out their drive about our 45, and I took their punt and ran it back to their 30, jinking around their defensemen.

It was a running game now, my game. I got us another first down, then scored from the 18 with Jake blocking for me. A quick conversion and the score stood at 16-9, and we led for the first time.

We didn't look back, final score 27-9. Jake came in again to kick our one field goal.

I kept thinking the 'Dogs might take revenge on me with a dirty tackle. But that didn't happen. The worst moment came in the last quarter when I faked, took a reverse handoff and ran for a 21-yard gain, but was forced out of bounds by the Dogs' replacement deep safety.

I thought we were going to trip one another, but both managed to keep our feet, ending up right in front of the 'Dog bench where Ginger grinned up at me, his right ankle wrapped and iced. "Payback," he mouthed at me.

But if karma was in the Bulls' dogma, they missed their chance. I walked off the field and into Megan's arms, still all in one piece. I didn't have time or energy to think about the other Number Seventeen right then. My girl and I almost seemed to strike sparks off each other.

There was a lot of shouting, and congratulations, whooping and hollering and fakey Lion's roars, and no one noticed Megan and me sneaking off to the parking lot, me still in my football uniform.

We'd come in separate vehicles as I had been planning to give the keys to the big truck back to Jake and had already done so before the game. Megan had come in my car, and we made our way toward it, along with a few dozen others finding their cars in the darkened lot. Megan, thinking ahead and getting here early, had parked under the light pole nearest the exit.

We'd come up with this plan because I didn't want to have to run another gauntlet to reach the coaches' showers, where I could change privately. I'd need another excuse for next week or another plan. The idea of not showing my hicks wouldn't work two weeks in a row, would it? Maybe if Megan gave me a new crop.

I must have been grinning when I glanced over at her as I steered the Mom-mobile over the speed bumps at the exit to the school parking lot.

Megan grinned back. "You're thinking about something dirty, aren't you?"

I laughed. "I'm thinking about the motel," I said.

"Mmm, hmm," she agreed." And what we're going to do there."

I felt my face turn red. Megan was much more relaxed about our relationship than I was. "You want something to eat?" I asked as we turned onto the highway leading to the town center and the fast food places there.

"Sounds like a straight line to me," she teased. "But yeah, let's get a bag of tacos from Rey's."

It sounded good to me, so I used the drive-through. At the window, the cashier asked, "Did we win tonight?"

I grinned at her. "We did," I said. "27 to 9."

"Sounds like a blowout," she commented, handing my change back.

"Don't believe that! The Dogs are tough!"

Megan leaned sideways to say, "Petey carried for three touchdowns!"

"You're Petey?" The woman asked.

"Uh, yeah," I admitted.

"Just a second," she said, leaving the window for a minute. She came back with a bag of our food. "I put in a couple of churros for our football hero," she said, grinning at me.

We both thanked her and got out of there. Megan was sniffing at the bag of goodies. It had embarrassed me a bit, but no one in their right mind turns down free churros. The Mexican-style cinnamon pastries were definitely a treat.

I drove on through town while Megan reached into the bag to pinch off bites of churro, alternately eating a bite herself and feeding one to me.

I headed toward the motel we had stayed in last Saturday. I knew more about what to expect this time, but I was still nervous.

"I got us a six-pack of sodas and some snacks for later, too," Megan said. Then she giggled, and I knew there was something more.

"What?" I asked, smiling over at her. We hit the tree line, and the temp outside must have dropped ten degrees. You could feel the cold radiating off the windows.

"I got something for you, well, for us," she said, giggling again. "Petey, Pete, Pete!"

"Well, what is it?" I asked. "You can be such a tease, Megan!"

"I thought it might be fun. For us, for both of us," she sounded like she was not quite sure of whatever was a good idea.

I frowned at the road. The motel was in Pine Creek, just a few miles after we reached the trees, when the road began to get a bit twisty. I hoped it wasn't full on a Friday night, but October wasn't high tourist season around here.

"It's a sex toy," Megan suddenly said. "My brother picked it up for me…at the shop, uh, as a joke…."

"A sex toy?" I sure hadn't expected that. Friendly had one sex shop in town, though the city had tried to keep it out. Books…and sex toys. They didn't display them in the windows, but I knew what they carried inside. "You mean like…like a dildo?"

"Yea-ahh," Megan admitted. She looked at me, turning a bit sideways.

I glanced at her and put my attention back on the road. A glimmer of neon ahead might be the motel. Megan looked apprehensive. "Pete, Pete, Petey?" she said softly.

I wasn't sure at all what I thought about her bringing a dildo to the motel.

“Shower is big enough for two,” she reported happily. “Get undressed!”

The clerk at the motel told us they only had one room left--second floor all the way back. “It’s only got one double bed, not a queen,” he warned.

“We’re only going to use one bed,” I said, and Megan giggled.

The clerk grinned and pointed at the football jersey I was still wearing. “Did we win?” He asked.

I nodded and got out of there. I knew he didn’t have any churros, and we had eaten ours on the road.

We made our way to the room, and I traded the key and bag of tacos to Megan to lug the bag she had been carrying. “You’ve got more than sodas in here,” I mentioned.

“I told you,” she said. I couldn’t tell if she blushed in the darkness, but I know I did when I remembered what she had said she brought. A sex toy, meaning a dildo. I almost stumbled thinking about it.

“I got something to go with the Cokes, too,” she added, stopping in front of the last door at the back of the motel. I looked off the walkway into the pine-and-manzanita brush of the mountain. I was guessing her other cargo would be some kind of alcohol. I’ll probably need it, I told myself.

A foggy dampness in the woods sent shivery tendrils down my back. I had ditched my helmet, cleats, and pads into the backseat of the Mom-mobile when we got to the car. I’d have to take that stuff back to school in the morning. Megan had brought shoes and a light jacket for me to wear, but October at 4000 feet can get chilly after dark, even in Arizona.

“Petey, Pete, Pete,” Megan complained from the door. “I can’t turn the key!”

“Probably corrosion in the lock,” I said. We swapped tasks, Megan taking the bags and me trying to work the stubborn door open. The key was hard to turn and bit deeply into my hand, but I managed and pushed the door open, standing out of Megan’s way as she hurried inside. Then I followed her in, sucking on the bruises the old brass key had left. “Ow,” I said.

Megan clicked light switches on, set the thermostat, and peered into the bathroom, dumping her load onto the faded and stained covering of the one bed. “Shower is big enough for two,” she reported happily. “Get undressed!”

“Tacos first,” I objected.

“Okay,” she agreed. “They’d get soggy in the shower anyway,” she said, giggling. She fetched plastic cups from near the sink, unwrapped them, and got out the bottle of Wild Turkey she had also brought while I poured cola into cups. Neither of us was old enough to buy it ourselves, and I could not possibly have sneaked anything out of my house, so her brother had probably bought it for her. Along with the dildo, which was still in the bag…

She added an ounce of whiskey to each of our cups and accused, “You don’t look excited.”

I made an excuse. “Still coming down from the game-high,” I said. I’d had bourbon and coke before, but I couldn’t say that I actually liked it. I toasted with Megan, tapping our plastic cups together. “For medicinal purposes,” I said, which at least got a giggle from my girl. From her expression, she knew exactly what I meant. I took a sip. It did taste like medicine.

We sat at the tiny table, unwrapped tacos and munched on Taco Rey’s finest offerings—which were pretty good. I didn’t finish my second taco, just staring at the last bite. There had been a day when I could have eaten six of them, even if I wasn’t particularly hungry. Megan finished both of hers and drank the last bit of salsa in the tiny paper cup.

She made a face, and we both took quick gulps of our drink. Then she produced half a churro she had evidently saved. We split the treat—there’s always room for churro—and sat there sipping our drinks for a bit.

I guess I had been staring at the bag as if it were an unfriendly cat that might scratch or bite. “Petey, we don’t have to do this,” Megan said suddenly.

I looked at her. She was twisting her fingers in her hands. “I don’t know about you,” I said, “but I really think I do need a shower.”

She blinked, then grinned and made dimples. “Let’s get naked,” she challenged.

I discarded my jacket, kicked off my shoes and pulled my jersey off over my head. My football pants seemed tighter than they should be, but I rolled them down over my hips and peeled them off me; my underwear came too. I stood up, and Megan was there, already out of her clothes. We kissed, longer and deeper than we had really been able to do all week. She tasted of bourbon and coke, and I probably did too.

Soon we were in the shower together, soaping each other’s backs, complaining of getting shampoo in our eyes, and rubbing up against each other as much and as often as we could.

I knelt in front of her, asking, “Can I?” I leaned my face against her.

“Here, now?” she squealed. “You might drown!”

I laughed into her pussy, and she squealed again. I rubbed my face on her private places, used my tongue, my fingers. She pulled my hair, dragged her nails up my back, moaned, and squealed several more times. Then she shuddered, bumped her head lightly on the ceramic tiles, and put the side of her hand in her mouth to stop a shriek...

I stood to keep her from falling, and she hung against me, arms around my neck, her soft titties against my chest where I barely had little nubbins. When had that happened? Megan found one of them with her mouth and sucked on it. I shivered and squirmed. This was different than last time. Nipples are awfully damn sensitive.

She relented, putting her face up to mine, and we kissed. “Now you,” she said, sliding down me to put her face against my sex as I had done for her. I sucked air between my teeth, clenched one hand in her hair, and found myself playing with one of my own nipples with the other.

She rubbed and sucked, using her tongue and her fingers as I had used them on her. The intensity of the feelings peaked, and I moaned and whimpered. Now Megan had to stand to hold me up.

I made drowning noises, and Megan got the hiccups. “Bed,” I said, pointing. We barely used towels before throwing our still-damp bodies at the mattress. We did things in the bed we had done before, together or separately, and we did things neither of us had ever thought of doing. Maybe no one had thought of some of them.

The room stayed mostly warm. Megan had turned up the heat when we first came in, but drafts from the windows and maybe from under the door touched us like icy ghosts now and then. But it was all good. We made love until we were exhausted then we slept for a time with the lights on.

When we woke up, the room was nearly stifling. I got up to jigger the thermostat while Megan produced a battery clock from her bag of tricks. “So we know the time, not like last week.” I laughed, nodding. The clock indicated a bit after 2:30, which seemed absurd.

I looked at myself in the mirror, and yes, I did have little nubbies on my chest, much like the ones Jordan had been showing through her shirts three years before. I now had even more reason not to dress or shower in the boys’ locker room--but how would I explain my new excuse to Coach?

“Beep!” said Megan as she poked me in one of my new decorations. “They’re so cute!”

“Oh, Jeez!” I complained, but then we were both laughing. We drained our now-warm cokes after adding a bit more Wild Turkey. We crawled back into bed. The sheets smelled of sweat and sex, but we cared nothing for that. We would take quick showers before we left, we decided.

But first.

Megan pulled the sex toy from the bag and showed it to me in its blister pack. I did not admire it. It was hot pink, about nine inches long and thick enough to make me wince. That thing was…was supposed to go up inside me?

Megan tore the package open like any ten-year-old on Christmas morning. At least it wasn’t a Daisy Air Rifle--you can put your eye out with one of those things. I must have smiled at that thought, but it was probably a sickly smile.

“You want to use it on me first?” Megan offered, producing one more thing from the magic bag, a tube of lube.

“No,” I said simply. “I had one of those once, and I apparently…” I trailed off, unable to finish a punchline. Megan was smiling at me and shaking her head.

“You make jokes when you’re scared, Petey, Pete, Pete,” she said.

“Also, when I’m terrified,” I informed her.

“What are you afraid of?” she asked, grinning. “That you might like it?”

“Ouch,” I said, nodding and pointing at her.

She laughed and proved me wrong about something earlier. The magic bag had one more thing to reveal, a pair of C-cell Duracell batteries on their own blister card.

“It takes batteries?” I asked, knowing that it might have been the stupidest thing I had ever asked anyone. I felt a twinge as muscles I barely knew I had twitched inside me.

“It’s a vibrator, Petey,” said Megan. She twisted it open, slipped the batteries in and closed it, turning it on to see if it worked.

It made a noise like a bumblebee looking for roses.

“Oh! Jeez! I don’t know about this, Megan,” I whined.

This destroyed her. She laughed so hard she almost fell off the bed. She recovered and passed the buzzing device to me. I took it like I would handle a rattlesnake, which it kind of sounded like.

“You know what to do,” she said.

I sighed. I flicked the switch off, then on again. I’d just been told to go fuck myself--and I was probably going to do it.

I shook my head, barely moving, not looking directly at her. “It’ll be fun,” she said.

I guess I stared at the buzzing instrument a little too long. Megan took it back from me gently, saying, “I’ll show you how.” She clicked the device off, making me flinch again.

I nodded at her, numb.

“You can’t go right in,” Megan explained. “It might hurt. Hmm.” She found the tube of lube and applied a line from the tip halfway down the shaft. I watched, trying to stop my lip from quivering. I pulled the sheet across me, causing Megan’s eyebrows to go up.

I didn’t care. I was so close to sobbing. In fear? Desperation? The cursing of any hope I had for—what? Going back to what—and who—I had been? I looked down at myself, translucently visible through the thin motel sheets.

“Petey?” Megan whispered. I shook my head, barely moving, not looking directly at her. “It’ll be fun,” she said. Her hand moved, turning the machine back on, perhaps without meaning to. A glob of the transparent goo she had applied, impelled by the vibration, flew through the air and landed on my thigh, making a nickel-sized circle of the sheet even more transparent.

Megan giggled. I wondered what my expression might be. Was I smiling?

Suddenly, we were both laughing, absurdity trumping angst.

“Shall I demonstrate?” she asked, using a fingertip to spread the glistening lube, then waving the pink shaft around.

“P-please,” I stammered.

She put the buzzing thing against her nether lips and then flinched away. “Too much! Too quick!”

A little experimentation first, vibrating against thigh and belly, then using a layer of the sheet between her honeypot and the electric dildo. She made funny noises. I heard someone giggling and decided it must be me.

She pulled the sheet away and said, like a surgeon in a bad medical drama, “I’m going in.”

I had to laugh at the expressions on her face. I took her other hand in both of mine. She pressed the vibrator against her pussy lips, moving it up and down, squeaking and hissing through her teeth and clenching my fingers. She arched her back and spread her legs further apart. Her movements were alternately tentative then deliberately sudden.

“You haven’t done this before either,” I accused.

She shook her head, grinning, and plunged the vibrator inside her, leaving only a handgrip length to hold onto. We both gasped. She worked the shaft in and out, pressing it upward. Her face seemed to blur with the vibration, but it must have just been my vision. She whimpered and gasped again, then let out a longer bubbly sound that broke into hiccupy noises and a moan.

I turned away, looking at the ceiling. I still held her one hand in mine, and she used it to tug on me. I heard her turn off the vibrator’s buzz. “Intense,” she murmured. She laughed, sounding pleased.

I let go of her hand, still not looking at her. My face felt red, my breath a bit ragged, and my eyes still burning from whatever had made things go blurry for a bit.

“You’ve got to try this, Petey,” she said. “I think I came two or three times.”

I didn’t need to hear that.

Megan rolled off the bed and went to the sink to clean up and wash the vibrator, too.

“It’s not like when we made love,” she was saying. “Or when that creep Logan,” her boyfriend from last year, “fucked me.”

I didn’t want to listen, for fear she would describe the sensations in detail.

She came back to the bed and reapplied the lube to the glistening pink shaft. I watched, wondering why my lips and eyelids kept twitching. It was almost the way I felt before a game, but this was definitely not football.

She handed me the vibrator. “Your turn,” she said, giggling. “Petey, Petey, Pete!”

I sighed. It wasn’t like facing off at the line of scrimmage against eleven guys, all of whom were bigger and stronger than me. What was I afraid of? Was it what Megan had suggested? That I might like it?

I took the pink fake and slid the switch to ON. “It’s got two speeds!” I noted.

“Start with the slower one,” Megan warned. “The fast one is a bit intense at first.”

“Ah, jeez,” I complained.

Megan helped me get the pillows arranged behind my neck, then settled on the bed, kneeling where I could see her, kind of framed between my knees. I wanted to pull my feet up out of her easy reach but didn’t. She wasn’t going to tickle me unexpectedly. (I hoped!)

“Here goes,” I said, flicking the switch on and off and on again. I brought the vibrator to my thigh, then my belly, kind of repeating Megan’s itinerary. I could feel myself quivering down there. It felt more like anticipation than dread. Watching Megan do this really had made it easier.

I circled the landing field several times. Some of the sensations were like nothing I had ever felt before—especially the internal ones. Something inside me clenched and quivered, and something else felt a bit like the hard-ons I had got when…when I used to be a boy.

This wasn’t real, was it? I hadn’t been turned into a woman by something like divine intervention, had I? Maybe I was really in a bad accident, lying in a hospital bed, out of my mind on painkillers.

“Fuck!” I yelped when the vibrator touched the lips I didn’t used to have.

With Megan giggling like a whole troop of insane monkeys, I explored the area. Some of it felt very, very good. Two hot tight spots crinkled up on my chest. My earlobes seemed to be buzzing—heterodyning off the vibrations, perhaps. My nose quivered, and my tongue pressed against the roof of my mouth. I flounced on the bed, my back arching, my throat sore from the noises I was making.

I plunged the vibrator inside me, thrusting with my hips involuntarily. I felt something, a tearing, pinching sensation and a flash of pain.

It wasn’t supposed to hurt, was it?

I didn’t want to know how she had been going to finish that...

It wasn’t a lot of blood, but we ended up stripping the bed and running cold water in the sink on the sheet to maybe prevent staining. Megan knew this trick which I had never heard of. “We don’t have any salt, but I think it will still work,” she commented.

I had no opinion. My usual participation in the laundry was tossing dirty clothes in a hamper and folding clean ones, mine and sometimes the towels or linen. I cleaned myself up with a washcloth, but I ended up feeling sticky inside, which was a very weird feeling.

“Does it still hurt?” Megan asked. “You have the oddest expression.” I could tell she was trying not to giggle.

“It didn’t actually hurt that much at all,” I said. “Sort of a pinch? But—uh—how do you clean yourself inside?”

“Oh, jeez,” she complained. She sighed. “Maybe I should let Aunt Louva give you that info….”

I glared at her. I didn’t really want to see Aunt Louva, Dr. Verre, again. “Just tell me!”

“Well, some women use douches to clean themselves, but Aunt Louva says that’s almost always unnecessary. Just clean yourself on the outside, and the inside cleans itself. You’re probably only imagining you feel sticky.” Megan looked apologetic.

“A douche? You mean like with a douchebag?”

This time she did giggle. She nodded, “A rubber one like a hot water bottle with a hose…and a, a nozzle, I guess you could call it.”

I could see my face in the bathroom mirror. I looked stricken, but Megan giggled again. “The other kind of douchebag is, you know, like a football player, and I don’t think you want one of them up there.”

I made a noise. “Don’t even joke about that, Megan!”

She laughed outright and stepped up close, putting her arms around my neck. “Is Petey a confirmed lesbian?” she asked, bumping against me.

I bent my head a bit to give her a quick peck on the lips. “Uh-huh,” I agreed. “I can’t even imagine….” I took a half-step back into the bedroom area, and Megan followed, bumping her hips against mine again. I retreated more until the bed was behind my knees. I sat, a bit awkwardly, not sure what I was doing or what Megan intended.

She pushed my legs apart, climbing me to sit in my open lap, our groins together, her arms still around my neck and now her legs wrapped around my hips. We squirmed to get a more comfortable position, then kissed forcefully, grinding together below the waist.

I held her against me with one arm while I played with a breast in my other hand. Heat seemed to radiate from both of us and all of our parts. We were sweating where our flesh touched.

“I think I love you, Petey, Petey, Pete,” she said while her teeth and tongue played with my ear lobe. “Do you love me?”

“I think so,” I agreed, grunting. “In the now, right now, I know I do.”

We ground together, her soft globe in my hand, my thumb on her nipple.

“Later is later,” she growled in my ear. “Love me now!”

* * *

We did several things we hadn’t tried before, with our hands, our faces, and the toys Megan had brought. When she used the vibrator to explore my cooch, she found a spot that made me squeal like a baby finding a puppy under the Christmas tree.

Megan laughed so hard she finally did fall off the bed, while I lay there, my fingers not quite inside me, finding that spot, again and again--and again, whistling between teeth clamped on a scream. I moaned. I thrashed around. I bumped my head on the wall. I crossed my eyes so hard, I heard roaring sounds in my ears.

Megan crawled back into bed and lay atop me, petting me, sucking on my nipples, kissing my lips, my ears, my eyes, while I rode an upside-down roller coaster until I lost my mind, hoarse from screaming. We lay tangled together, gasping, laughing, sweating, delirious with making love.

“Who knew you were a screamer, Petey, Pete, Pete?” Megan whispered.

“Oh, jeez,” I moaned. “Do you think anyone heard us?” Megan had had her own crescendo earlier, when I tried to play her like a kazoo. She had cackled like a hyena and brayed like a donkey, all while slapping and pushing on my head to get me to stop--and then she had protested when I did.

I laughed softly, remembering, she’d made me promise to start shaving my armpits, too. “If I gotta do it, you gotta do it!” she insisted.

“You don’t gotta!” I told her, but she wasn’t having that.

“Oh yes, I do! Sweaty armpit hair is gross!” I laughed because it was true, of course.

We talked some more, got up and turned off all the lights., then got back in bed and made love again, our skin soft and slippery. Sometime during this part, we fell asleep, tangled together like a pile of forgotten laundry.

* * *

I woke when I felt her get up. She hurried to the bathroom and returned quickly, covered in goosebumps from the cold. The heat in the room had apparently turned off automatically. She slid back in beside me. “Brr!” she said.

“You’re like ice,” I commented.

“Warm me up,” she pleaded.

“Gotta go,” I said. I slipped out of bed and found the bathroom, doing my business sitting down, of course. It had been two weeks now, and the world had changed again. “Megan,” I called softly.

“Petey?” she answered. I heard her moving around on the bed, rearranging the sheets for some warmth, maybe.

“Can it always be like this?” I asked softly. She didn’t answer at first because we both knew it couldn’t.

“We can try,” she offered.

I nodded, then used toilet paper to make sure I was dry. A bit of moonlight from the high window in the bathroom showed the whiteness of the soiled sheet lying in the shower, the stain a blacker shadow.

“Time is it?” I asked. When I stood, I felt cramps in my thighs.

“After four,” she answered, quickly enough that I knew she had already checked.

“Wanna get cleaned up and find something to eat?” I suggested.

I heard her stretch and sigh. “Yeah,” she agreed, making it a drawling, lazy sound. “Turn the light on.”

I did and just stood there in the bright bathroom doorway, watching her watching me. She squinted a bit, then sat up to get a better view. “You don’t look like…,” she began, but she stopped herself.

I didn’t want to know how she had been going to finish that, and maybe she didn’t either.

“That shower ain’t really big enough for two, is it?”

I shook my head.

“Take yours first, then. I know you’ll be quick.”

I pulled the sheet out of the shower, leaving it in a lump under the sink. The water got hot quickly, and I was soon soapy and melancholy with water running down my back. I hurt in places I had never hurt before, mostly a sweet tiredness, but my nipples felt raw and swollen. “Yikes,” I told myself, but I didn’t examine them for fear of what I might discover.

Getting dry with the meager supply of towels while leaving enough for Megan was a challenge, but she had got the heat to come back on, and I quickly found the extra set of clothes we’d brought, and got dressed while she made herself clean and dry.

I had one moment, staring at a fresh package of panties she had brought. Four bits of lace and satin in pastel colors that were ineffably Megan and feminine. But I put on my own underwear, postponing what I somehow knew would have to happen eventually. After I won some more ball games.

* * *

We left the motel still in darkness, the sun wouldn’t be up for hours yet. It almost seemed odd to be driving my own car again, after a week behind the wheel of Jake’s leviathan.

Megan had been quiet for the most part as we had loaded the car up. I looked across at her in the dimness of the dashboard lights. “Bebo’s?” I suggested, meaning an all-night local diner on the near end of town.

She shrugged. “Better than Perky’s,” she agreed. Besides, the chain diner was at the other end of town.

Bebo’s parking lot was empty except for a semi-rig idling near the back where a few cars of employees were parked. It was cold — October at nearly four thousand feet is like that. I pulled up the cowl on my jacket to cover my ears. We hurried inside, where a sign told us to find our own seats. We moved away from the drafts around the doors and big windows and found a booth in the pleasant warmth flowing from the kitchen.

A middle-aged waitress waved at us from the back. “Coffee?” she asked. “Making a fresh pot.”

“Yes, please,” we answered, sliding across the cracked vinyl upholstery. Menus were already on the table. Raisin bread French toast with whiskey syrup was a Bebo’s specialty, and I decided I would have mine with the ham steak and scrambled eggs. Megan put her menu down, too, just as the waitress approached with a steaming glass pot and two cups.

“You girls out late or up early?” she asked cheerfully as she put down the cups in front of us.

There had been that moment back in the motel...

I sat there, unable to react. I certainly couldn’t speak. The waitress had just casually referred to Megan and me as girls. Had I changed again? Was it obvious?

There had been that moment back in the motel when Megan stared at me, starting to say something about how I looked. She had stopped herself, but what had she been about to say?

And now, she and the waitress were prattling on, and I had no idea what they were talking about. I was looking at the far wall, somewhere between the two of them, but I was unable to change even that. I didn’t want to look at either of them anyway. Doing so might require that I say something.

But the moment came anyway. Phyllis, (I could read the waitress’s name tag), smiled at me. “Is that your boyfriend’s jacket?” she asked. “You look cute in it!”

Cute!?

Megan’s eyes were wide open, almost bulging. I must not have looked like that!

Phyllis laughed. “Rah! Lions! I heard they won tonight.”

I surprised myself by making a noise. “Um,” I said. I was looking at the waitress now, so I smiled. At least, it may have been a smile or maybe just a grimace.

She smiled back, so my face must have been working. “Are you ready to order?” she asked. “Or are your boyfriends meeting you here?”

“Just us,” Megan managed to say. “I think we both want the Special?” She looked the question at me, and I think I nodded. Raisin bread French toast—would I even be able to eat?

The room seemed to slide in and out of focus as we negotiated our orders. I forgot about what I had decided and heard myself agree with Megan’s choices of scrambled and sausages. Sausages? Really?

Megan and I stared at each other as Phyllis hurried off.

Suddenly, Megan moved, getting up into the aisle and tugging on my arm. “Conference,” she half-whispered to me. I let her tow me along until I saw where she was going.

“I can’t go in there,” I protested, still trying to be quiet.

“You need to look in a mirror,” she said, pulling me into the ladies’ room behind her.

“We had mirrors at the motel,” I said. I hadn’t been into the ladies’ bathroom since I was small, and it didn’t seem like a good time to start doing it.

She shrugged. “I kind of noticed then, but I don’t think you did.” She gestured at the glass above the sink.

I didn’t gasp--it wasn’t that dramatic. I stared at my face, though, realizing that something had changed. Again.

It took me a while to work out what it was. A little less chin, less nose, thinner eyebrows, more cheekbones, lower hairline, and just a softer look. More like a girl’s face…. Subtle changes that added up.

“You’ve always been a pretty boy, Pete. Now, you’re just… prettier.” Megan commented. “And uh, I think you’re taller, too.”

“Taller?” I noticed that my hair seemed a bit shaggier, too. I tried to gulp air as Megan measured the top of her head, which now seemed about even with the bridge of my nose. An inch or so lower than it had appeared for most of the last year. “Why would I get taller?” I asked. I hadn’t grown more than an inch since freshman year.

“How should I know?” Megan grumbled. “I think your neck’s smaller, too and your shoulders. Your jacket doesn’t fit like it used to.”

I pulled down on the jacket, noting that my shoulders did not quite reach the seams. Then I startled both of us with a sob.

She pulled me close, and I put my arms around her. We held each other while I got control of the urge to weep. “What if…?” But I didn’t know what question I wanted to ask her.

She answered anyway. “I don’t know, Petey. I don’t know.”

* * *

What I really wanted to do was just leave, but I couldn’t think of anywhere else to be. Eating breakfast at Bebo’s was as good a place as any other, and oddly, I did feel hungry. Insane after what was happening, but I needed a bit of comfort food, I guess. And there’s nothing much more comforting than a good breakfast.

We made our way back to our table, holding hands. It seemed the thing to do.

Two guys, truckers from the look of them, sitting under the big windows near the front door, waved their coffee cups at us. One of them winked, but I had already passed through my shock at my new transformation. I didn’t glare at him, but I sure as heck didn’t wink back. I felt my face turn red just from thinking about that.

Phyllis had delivered coffee to our places, along with water glasses and the little two-ounce shot glasses Bebo’s served their whiskey syrup in. I had once asked what went into the syrup and had been told it was a proprietary recipe but involved bourbon, maple sugar, vanilla, cinnamon, water and a pinch of salt.

“No one will make it at home,” the cook had told me, “because it takes forever to boil it back down to syrup. And yes, the alcohol cooks out, but you can still taste the bourbon.” He was right, I suppose, though I had never tasted bourbon at the time.

Phyllis brought our food and put the bill down with it too, but the receipt was already marked paid. “Cooper and Stack, the guys by the door, paid for it,” she explained. “They think you two are the cutest things!” She looked at our expressions and quickly added, “Don’t worry, they’re harmless. If they tried anything, their wives would kill them—if I didn’t do them in first!”

My mouth hung open, and Phyllis hurried off, giggling. The men toasted us with their coffee cups again. Megan lifted a hand, telling me, “Wave at them.”

I started to lift my hand but put it back on the table.

“No,” Megan insisted. “You should let them know that what they did was nice.“

“They’re both older than my parents!” I said quietly. I don’t know if that really mattered, but it did creep me out a bit.

“You’re not going to date them or anything–just acknowledge that they did something for us.”

I lifted my hand and wiggled my fingers at the men, just as Megan was doing.

It felt incredibly girly. And Megan didn’t help by snerking on a flock of giggles.

Most jocks being meatheads...

I paid for our meal and tried not to cringe as the waitress said goodbye to us.

“Don’t mind those old truckers. They’re harmless,” Phyllis assured us. “They hardly know how to act around pretty girls.”

Megan laughed and responded, “If they give us trouble, we’ll sic our boyfriends on them.”

I thought she laughed a little too hard at that. I didn’t dare make a sound for fear of it coming out as giggles. I just smiled, waved at Phyllis, and made my way to the door, getting there just in time for the arrival of two more truckers. Before I could push through, one of them had opened the door from outside and stood there, holding it open for me.

The raisin bread French toast, eggs, sausage, syrup and juice, jostled around inside me, but I resisted getting sick.

Megan came up behind me and gave me a little nudge. “Go,” she whispered. “Smile, and say thank you.”

I tried that, but one of the truckers pointed at the number on my jacket sleeve. “Number seventeen,” he said beaming at me. “Is that Gayle Peterson’s jacket?”

I swallowed hard and gulped. How did they know my real first name? I nodded. What else could I do?

They loomed over me, both dressed for the October level of local cold in flannel shirts, puffy jackets and lined caps. The second trucker, grinning widely, exclaimed, “Pete must be your boyfriend!”

“Shit,” I heard someone mutter. It might have been me, but I think it was Megan, who jumped in quickly before I could throw up on the man’s boots.

“No,” she said. “Pete is my boyfriend. I’m just letting Jill wear the jacket ‘cause she gets cold easier than I do.”

Jill? Oh, crap. I’d almost forgotten that Dr. Verre (my gynecologist! Megan’s aunt!) pretends that my name is Jill Hunter at the hospital!

The guys were still talking to us, one of them saying, “Well, Pete had a heck of a night at the game last night. Put on a show running and dodging, then stomping on that Bulldog’s leg!”

I wanted to protest that I hadn’t stomped on Ginger’s leg, but what could I say?

Megan spoke up. “Pete didn’t do it! The ref would have called a penalty if that had happened!”

“Refs don’t see everything,” the other trucker put in. “But we won the game, and that’s the important thing.” Both of them nodded, making me feel even sicker.

I debated making a break for it, running for the car, but the two men politely stepped aside to let us pass. Not without one last zing, though, as one of them observed, “Are you a relative of Pete’s, Miss Jill? You look a bit like him.”

“Cousins,” Megan supplied with her hands on my shoulders, pushing me past the gauntlet. For some reason, we both started running, Megan laughing like a lunatic. By the time we got to the car, I had the hiccoughs from trying not to giggle.

I was glad I hadn’t locked the car doors as I slid behind the wheel, and Megan climbed in on the other side, gasping and still laughing. “Petey, Petey, Pete!” She chortled, thankfully calling me by my preferred name.

“Hic,” I said painfully, holding my side.

“That was hilarious,” Megan said, sliding across the front bench seat next to me. She snuggled up, which would have been nice, but I was too wound up to appreciate it.

“Hic!?” I protested. “I was terrified! Hic.”

“Of what?” she asked. “They’re two of your biggest fans!”

“Oh, Hel-ic-el! Hic!” I glared at her, then pushed her thigh out of the way so I could dig out my keys. But they weren’t in my pants, and I remembered I had put them in the jacket pocket.

I started the car up, and icy air poured out of the vents. We both reached for the controls to turn off the fan, and this set Megan off on another laughing fit. “Pete! Petey! Pete!” She squealed and pulled my face over to hers for a kiss.

“Oh, Jeez! What if they saw us do that?”

She only laughed harder. “We’re kissing cousins!”

“No, I’m supposed to be my cousin, not yours! Oh! Fu-uck!” I wasn’t confused, but it had started to seem funny. And Megan made it worse by digging in my ribs!

“Petey’s got the hiccoughs,” she squealed.

I made sure my foot was still on the brake and tried to tickle her back. That wasn’t working too well, and I pulled on the emergency brake so I could concentrate on retaliation. We were soon both giggling and squealing and squirming around.

We eventually stopped laughing to lie on the wide seat of Mom’s old Chevelle, gasping for breath. “I’m done if you’re done,” I offered.

“Deal,” she agreed. “Is there any heat in this thing?” She punched at the heater controls and was rewarded with an anemic wheeze of non-freezing air. She fiddled with the controls while I got us out of the parking lot and headed back toward the middle of town.

“Where we going?” she asked when I had already passed Airport Road, which was the turnoff to the trailer park where she lived with her folks and a passel of little brothers and sisters. And Travis, her one older brother, I remembered.

“I’ve got to take my equipment and uniform to the school for laundry,” I said. “We didn’t do that last night.”

“Oh, yeah,” she agreed. “We had other plans.” She giggled again.

“Don’t start,” I warned her. “My ribs are too sore for more laughing.” I swiped a hand across my chest and winced. But that wasn’t my ribs. I had two itchy sore spots there that I didn’t want to think about. Something occurred to me.

“Megan, how did those guys know my name is really Gayle?” Well, Gaylen, but I already knew it was wrong in the school administration records.

She rolled her eyes. “Petey, you’re listed in the program at football games as Gayle ‘Pete’ Peterson.”

“I am?” I didn’t know. I’d never looked at a program. “Has it been that way all season?”

She nodded. “It was that way last year, too. Football and baseball programs, both.”

“Gack! Everyone knows my real first name?” I stared at her, then turned my head back to the street.

“Everyone who reads a program. It’s why Aunt Louva made up the name Jill for you.”

Well, that was one mystery sort of resolved. Still, no one at school called me Gayle, not the teachers, not even the jocks. And wouldn’t some of them have called me Gay, I mean, if they knew? Most jocks being meatheads who would think that was funny?

I turned left at Pecos, and we made our way to the north edge of town, where the new high school had been built four years before. The old high school was now the middle school, nearer the middle of town. I’d never gone there but had played football for the Caballeros at the K-to-8 school at the east end of town. I’d graduated eighth grade and gone directly to the new high school to become a Lion.

Freshman year, I hadn’t been big enough to play varsity but had gone out for the Frosh. This was my fifth year of playing football for a school team. How many programs were out there with my name listed as Gayle?

Chalk it up to another miracle? Shaking my head, I turned into the lot behind the gym and parked under the big Lions’ mural. Another vehicle was already parked there, and I stopped smiling when I saw it. A man I knew well was getting out of the cab of the big Chevrolet Suburban.

“Who’s that?” Megan asked, pointing.

“Coach Wilson,” I answered. “Some of the guys probably gave him their uniforms to turn in.”

“Will he mind that I’m here with you?” she asked.

I shook my head, but I didn’t start to get out of the car.

“What’s the matter?’ Megan asked.

Sure enough, Coach was lugging a big duffel with clothing in the school colors sticking out the top toward the entrance to the boys’ locker room. He waved at us, and Megan waved back.

“Petey?” Megan asked again. “What’s wrong?”

I still hadn’t moved. “What if he doesn’t recognize me? What if he sees me and thinks I’m a girl?”

“This is the boys’ side of the gym,” she commented...

I sat there paralyzed, watching Coach make his way to the side door of the gym. I really didn’t know what I was going to do. The incidents at the cafe had shaken my confidence that I was a boy named Pete and not a girl named Gayle.

Megan fidgeted beside me, my uncertainty evidently affecting her, too.

Coach put the duffel he had been carrying down beside the door while he fumbled with some keys. I still sat there behind the wheel of the Mom-mobile, trying to reach some conclusion about what to do.

Megan spoke up. “You want me to carry them up, Petey?”

I shook my head. “No, I’ll do it.” Her offer had gotten me to make a decision, at least. I reached into the backseat and retrieved the paper bags holding my jersey, uniform pants, pads and cleats. The helmet had rolled across the back bench out of reach.

Megan volunteered again. “I’ll get it,” she said, sliding out of the car, opening the rear passenger door and catching the helmet before it hit the ground.

Someone yelled, “Pete!” and we both looked up to see Coach Wilson waving at us from near the rectangle of the gymnasium side door. He looked happy to see us, and I wished I felt the same. Part of me realized that it was good that he was here to unlock the door, relieving me of the pressure of waiting for Leland Frick or a janitor to show up. It was either that or leave the gear in a pile by the door.

I started toward the gym, self-conscious as hell. Megan stepped close and linked arms with me. “I’m coming, too, Petey,” she said, and I was glad of the offer of solidarity. I tried not to slouch, to make it feel less like a trip to an execution and more like a simple, routine task. But I felt awkward, with a couple of itchy places on my chest and a consciousness of my ass that really unsettled me.

“Pete!” Coach called again, motioning that we should follow him into the gym. Feeling doomed,. I trudged on, Megan still serving as my supporter.

“This is the boys’ side of the gym,” she commented as we stepped inside. “I’ve never been in here.”

Overhearing her, Coach Wilson laughed. “You’re not the first cheerleader to see these sacred halls, though.” He grinned at us, and I wondered why he seemed so amused by the idea.

He’d already dumped most of the contents of his duffle into one of the two canvas laundry bins near the door and was shaking the big bag to dislodge any remaining smaller items from the bottom. A few socks and a jockstrap fluttered into the first laundry bin.

Seeing the last item, I felt my face turn red, and I tried not to look away, which was my first reflex. Megan giggled beside me.

The second bin held pads and other items that didn’t need to go into the big washing machines, and I quickly distributed my load between the two containers while Megan put my helmet on a table with the others.

Coach had finished first and gave me a manly whack on the shoulder. “Looking good, Pete!” he said, winking toward Megan at the same time.

I winced from the blow and managed to keep my yelp down to a mild “Ow!” He’d caught me by surprise, and I thought it hurt more than other such demonstrations of male camaraderie had in the past.

Coach laughed. “You looked good in the game, too, Pete!” he added. “And I dunno, have you had a growth spurt since the season started? You look a little taller.”

“Uh? Maybe?” I shrugged. Had Megan mentioned something about that? But was a little height gain all he had paid attention to? Maybe my increasing… girliness… wasn’t as obvious as I feared.

“And Megan,” he continued. “If you haven’t planted a new crop of teeth marks, maybe Pete can go back to using the main locker room.” He grinned at both of us. Oh. That was why he’d been winking at Megan. “The guys would have never stopped teasing him if they had seen the last batch.”

I stammered, unsure of what to say. Changing in the same locker room with the guys just wasn’t going to work—especially with the budding growths on my chest—but I hadn’t come up with another excuse for continuing to use the coaches’ private showers.

Megan glanced at me, probably seeing the near panic in my eyes. She spoke up before I could manage anything more than a strangled mumble. “Maybe not, Mr. Wilson,” she said. “There’s kind of a new problem I noticed last night!”

We traded glances and blushes, and Coach grinned at both of us.

“What now?” he asked. “You didn’t draw blood, did you, sweetie?” he joked.

“Uff?” I felt like the noise had been squeezed out of me. I looked at her, appealing for some kind of help. Any kind, maybe, but instead…

Megan swallowed hard, leaned away from me and suggested. “Show him your chest, Petey, Pet?!”

I stared at her. Then at him. My mouth hung open, but nothing came out.

Coach frowned.

Finally, desperate, I took the hem of my jersey and pulled it up to my armpits.

Coach’s eyes widened., “Hmm,” he said. “Looks like you’ve got a little goonish-commie-magic going on.”

“Just keep moving, Petey, Pete, Pete."

“You mean gynecomastia?” Megan suggested. Had Dr. Verre mentioned the word? I didn’t remember. Somehow I did know what it meant, so I must have heard it somewhere. Breast growth on a boy. That really wasn’t the situation, but right at that moment, I would have stammered if someone asked for my name. I sure as hell wasn’t going to try to explain anything.

Coach pointed at Megan, “Yeah, that! Three-dollar word for five-cents of panic. It always clears up before it’s a real problem.” He grinned. “Lots of boys go through it. I had it myself when I was fourteen. Almost went out of my mind worrying about it.” He winked, still grinning.

My heart had already done a backflip, just showing my chest to Coach, and the sudden twist of hope I knew was false almost tied me in a knot. I slowly lowered my jersey to my waist again and tried not to make a sound.

Megan stepped up to take any heat off me. “You can see why Petey doesn’t want to dress in the gym, can’t you, Coach?” She didn’t look at me, and I swallowed another sob.

He nodded. “Yeah, sure. Guys can be real assholes about shit like that, and frankly, some of them are jealous of Petey being a star.” He laughed. “Just keep using my office bath for now, this may clear up before the end of the season. It goes away as fast as it shows up, usually.”

Megan put an arm around me, and I stretched my own across her shoulders. This was turning out way better than it might have. I gave her a bit of a squeeze and got one in return.

Coach’s grin looked like it might split his head in two. “You make a cute couple,” he said. “A future homecoming queen and king.”

Megan swallowed a noise between a snerk and a giggle—a snergle?—and I managed what sounded like a hiccough.

Coach, still smiling, commented. “You’re finally taller than your girlfriend, Pete. You’ve had a late growth spurt, and that’s probably what caused the other thing.” He was looking at my chest, so I moved my head in a sort of loopy nod, not agreeing or disagreeing.

Megan beamed at him, then turned to look at me, pretending she had to crick her neck to look up. “Petey’s the perfect height for me!” she told Coach. “But we need to get out of here.”

“Yeah, sure,” Coach agreed. “Neither of you going to be in trouble for not getting home before daylight?”

I stammered something, but Megan just laughed about it, like it was something that could never happen. I wasn’t so sure, though I hadn’t given a thought to any sort of curfew since football season started.

Was that going to change if my parents find out I’m a girl? I couldn’t think about that or my head would explode.

Megan headed for the door, steering me around the baskets of laundry and out into the chill October dawn. “Just keep moving, Petey, Pete, Pete. We’re doing good so far,” she whispered. Then shouted back over her shoulder to Coach, “Good night, Mr. _Wilson!” Even if, technically, it wasn’t night anymore.

“See you at two p.m., Pete,” Coach called out. “Lee has some new footage to show us. I think he got you stomping that Bulldog on film.”

I started to protest that I hadn’t stomped Ginger, the Bulldog number seventeen, but Megan almost yanked me off my feet when I tried to pause. Coach wouldn’t have heard me anyway, but I really didn’t want that version of events to spread. I let it go for the moment. My brain had been co-opted by some industrious squirrel and filled with pine nuts anyway.

We made it to the car, but Megan guided me to the passenger side. I didn’t object. If she wanted to drive, I could understand. My mouth tasted like moldy carpet, and my hands felt shaky. If she wanted to drive, it was probably a good idea.

I loaded myself in and sat forward, my head resting on the dash while Megan got us moving. “We’ll go to my house,” she said. “You can hide there until you feel like going home.”

You can’t nod while your head is in the position mine was in, but I waved a hand at her.

*

We made it to Megan’s place without me doing anything but sigh and giggle.

“You’re giggling,” Megan noted as she stopped in front of her family’s double-wide mobile home.

“Do you know how near I came to shitting on myself when you told me to lift my shirt?” I said, finally raising my head to look at her. Then we were both giggling as we got out of the car and tried to get inside before we woke someone up. It was beginning to be light outside, but plenty of the trailers around us were still dark on an early Saturday morning.

We went in the front door, Megan explaining that the young ones would soon be up to watch cartoons. I knew there were six or seven kids total in the D’Auguste family, counting Megan and her older brother Travis, but I’d never gotten straight on names, ages or genders.

I was just easing the heavy glass door closed behind us when a voice spoke up from the dimness of the living room, and a light went on.

“Bout time you got home,” Travis’s voice accused his sister as he sat up on the couch and dislodged a blanket that had covered him. His bronze body gleamed in the lamplight, revealing that he’d been sleeping in nothing but a pair of boxer shorts decorated with violins.

“I thought you had a boyfriend named Pete,” he asked.

I tried not to stare at Travis in his musical underwear. Why violins? my mind wondered. Did he have a whole orchestra in his chest of drawers? At least it wasn’t saxophones.

But now that I had thought of saxes, I had a hard time thinking at all.

Megan stepped in front of me, and my brain started functioning again. “We’ve got company,” she scolded her brother. “And since when do you sleep in the living room?”

I could still see him from the waist up over Megan’s shoulder. He smiled directly at me, and I felt my face flush. The color of his skin was deeper and a bit darker than Megan’s coffee-with-heavy-cream, but somehow, he seemed to glow in the darkness. Could everybody else hear me breathing?

“I hadda move out here ‘cause those little hellions took up the whole bed! And who’s this?” He asked, pulling the sheet to cover more of his body. “Is this why you needed those toys?” he grinned at me.

Toys? Oh, my God! Travis was the one who had bought the dildo and vibrator for Megan!

“James and Amos slept in your room when you were gone, but they s’posed to give it up while you’re home,” she frowned at him. “They get Estrellita’s bed, and she sleeps with Mama!”

“Too complicated,” scoffed Travis. “The littl’uns ain’t no trouble most of the time. ‘Cept tonight, they got in a scuffle and kept giggling and kicking each other. So I came out heah.” His accent was a little heavier than Megan’s. It made me think of warm molasses.

Megan leaned a bit sideways, like the situation had her off balance. We couldn’t see each other’s faces, but Travis could see both of us. He was still smiling.

“I thought you had a boyfren’ named Pete,” he asked. I couldn’t read his expression, but he was looking directly at me, and his eyes had gotten bigger somehow.

Megan laughed. “This is Pete, you goofus,” she accused him. “He’s the hero of the football team!”

Travis blinked. “You funnin’ me, Little Margaret?” he demanded.

He was still looking at me, so I shrugged. He glanced at Megan and back at me. “I mean,” he mused, “it’s okay wit’ me if you play both sides of the street. But you ain’t trying to tell me this little darling is a football player!” Then he winked at me!

Megan turned around, her mouth wide open, but nothing came out. I began to move slowly back toward the door, fumbling behind me for the handle. I have no idea what my face looked like, but Travis seemed even more interested than before!

“Get out, Pete,” Megan mouthed to me. “Call you later,” she added out loud.

I seemed to have discovered teleportation, finding myself standing beside my car with no memory of having gone through the door, gone down the porch stairs, or crossed the tiny DuQuesne front yard. I fumbled with my keys, trying to unlock a car door that wasn’t locked.

My hands shook, and I was breathing in gulps, but I managed to get in behind the wheel and start the car. Still, I was out on the street before I remembered to turn on the headlights. I chose a roundabout way toward home, my nerves yammering that my secret was out--that I’d never play football again.

My eyes burned, and my nose ran. I wasn’t conscious of weeping, but I tasted salty tears.

The sun rose over the eastern hills, a lavender sky turning pink, then gold. I realized I had driven up the slopes north of town, and I couldn’t go any higher without risking my shaky suspension on an old logging road. I parked under a Douglas fir that had been overlooked by the timber crews or had grown up in the decades since logging was profitable in central Arizona.

Is this where it ends? I asked myself. No championship, no AIS tournament, no helping Jake earn a scholarship? What do I do now? Can I even have a life if everyone knows I’m a girl?

I thought of another monument to Friendly’s past. Less than two miles away, over a different ridge than the one I had climbed, lay the old Micah Sweet copper mine, a two-hundred-foot-deep pit with nearly sheer sides and a pool of toxic chemicals at the bottom of it. The road stopped a quarter mile from the edge, but there were ways around the barriers the state had put up to keep the curious away. I could even walk it from where I was.

...alone, on the mountainside, making up my mind.

I must have driven home that morning, but I have no memory of it. I woke up in my own bed with Jordan at my door saying something that didn’t register,

“Dad wants you down at the dealership,” she said again. I’d heard her the first time but hadn’t responded. “Hunt? You alive in there?” She sounded amused. My family calls me Hunt or Hunter since we’re all named Petersen.

I made a noise. “Don’t come in,” I warned her.

“As if? Better shake it. He said it like he meant right away.” It heard her turn away from the door and then back. “Oh, and Mom saved you a breakfast roll and a piece of bacon.”

I yawned and mumbled something. I could see my clock without getting out of the warm and comfortable covers. It was ten ’til nine, early for a Saturday morning, and everyone knew I’d been out all night. Dad probably wanted me to come down to the dealership to wash cars; that was my usual gig there, especially if an auto transporter had arrived with a bunch of used cars from California. It was good money, and not that hard to do.

I yawned again. Everything felt a little unreal. Had it all happened in less than fifteen hours? The game, Megan and I at the motel, the cafe with the truckers, the meeting with Coach Wilson, then Megan and Travis at their house. And then me, alone, on the mountainside, making up my mind.

Apparently, I had decided to live. It didn’t exactly surprise me. I’m usually an optimist. But it wasn’t just for myself. I wanted to live because of Jordan and Molly, Megan and Jake, Mom and Dad, and the guys on the team. There were still football games that needed winning. I yawned and stretched, still under the blankets, feeling the sheets on my skin and especially the two new sensitive spots on my chest.

Don’t think about that, I told myself, throwing back the covers and turning to sit on the edge of the bed and hunt for my slippers with my feet. I glanced down at myself. The little bumps looked especially triangular from this view. I’d already learned that it was better not to scratch them even if they did itch. The left one decided just then to crinkle up and push its nipple out, (maybe because I was thinking about it?) I glanced right with that thought, and sure enough, the other one swelled a bit, too, and both nips were perky now.

“Cut it out, guys,” I complained, but I used both hands to give my chesticles a gentle rub, and that felt good in a very strange way. I could see my reflection in the mirror over the chest of drawers, and I made a face, then a series of them, trying to make myself laugh. No go. So, my feet having finally found my slippers, instead of winter floors, I stood up.

Then I glanced down again, looking further. What was I wearing? They showed quite clearly in the mirror; a pair of the lacy panties Megan had offered me last night, the open plastic bag with three more pair in view on top of the dresser. I felt myself blush. When had I put those on?

The lace front was distressingly flat, but I had no memory of putting the panties on. This pair was a pastel blue. The other three were pink, lavender and white. At least I wasn’t wearing the pink pair. I made another face, staring at my reflection. What I saw was a slender young woman with mannish black hair. I couldn’t find Pete in the mirror at all.

I lifted my arms in a muscle magazine pose and snorted. “I need to work out more,” I told myself and resolved that I would do just that. I had weights and a bench set up in the garage and had used them a lot during the summer, but I’d let that go in favor of wind conditioning when school started. To be honest, I hated lifting weights. Unlike running or even sprinting, it didn’t feel like you were getting anything done.

I took a team t-shirt from a hanger and pulled it on before heading to the bathroom--where I did my business sitting down, of course. I made another face when I pulled the panties back up, but I didn’t stop to change them. To be honest, they did fit better than my boy briefs. I took a moment to pull my shirt up to get a look at my butt in the mirror. “Jeez,” I complained, noticing that the shirt fit kind of long on me.

Not really a puzzle, I realized. The name across the back read Fremont, and the number displayed was nine, making it one of Jake’s. It was the shirt he’d given me after winning his first game as quarterback last year. The winning play had been one of the rare times I caught a pass, a short buttonhook over the heads of both lines, and I had run with it for sixty-five yards. It was the final play of the game.

I wanted to wear that shirt. I had an irrational feeling it would bring me luck. It wasn’t every day or every game I caught a game-winning pass. I found a pair of jeans that hadn’t gotten too tight in the seat and pushed the tails of the shirt down inside the waistband. Then my own team jacket with Petey and #17 on the back, and my oldest pair of boots—because running shoes would get wet if I had to wash cars.

In the kitchen, I took the breakfast roll and bacon Mom had saved me and folded them to make a sort of sandwich before I headed for the door. “Going to the Ford shop,” I called, munching on the snack. No one answered, so I went on out to my car.

I felt a bit strange—partly because of what I was wearing, and maybe mostly because things were a little strange these days—but no one else could tell, I hoped. I finished my sweet and salty breakfast on the drive to the shop and pulled into the lot through the back gate. Sure enough, an auto transport was unloading a bunch of used cars, and Dad was busy supervising. He looked harassed, so I navigated around him and the big trailer rig.

Dad spared an arm to point as he moved away, and I saw one of the mechanics waving me toward a service bay; I supposed just to get my mom-mobile out of the way. I parked and climbed out, leaving the key in the ignition. Dennis Rolfe, the head mechanic, gestured for me to come into the service office.

He dangled a set of keys in his hand then tossed them toward me. I caught them out of the air, then realized someone else was waving at me through the big windows on the sales floor. Mom, Dad, Jordan and Molly stood next to a car that was the exact same color as the panties I was wearing.

“I promised you a car, didn’t I?”

I thought I’d left Dad at the rear of the lot with the new arrival of used cars from California, but there he was on the concrete apron in front of the showroom windows with Mom and my sisters standing around a blue car. He must have jogged to catch up with me before I got here.

Everyone was grinning, and Dad made a pumping motion with his fist. He yelled at me, “I promised you a car, didn’t I?” and he pointed at the blue one. Jordan and Molly cheered for me, bouncing around like crazy.

I was grinning so hard my face hurt, and I broke into a jog, too, out the side door and around to the front, still clutching the keys the service manager had tossed to me. “It’s beautiful!” I shouted back.

It was, too—a four- or five-year-old Capri, the European version of the Mustang, in a baby blue paint job not available on US Ford models. The black racing markings added to its appeal, and I fell in love with the car immediately.

I wanted to run up to Dad and give him a hug, and maybe thank him and call him Daddy, but I stopped myself. I knew I’d have to tell everyone what was going on with me, but not yet—not yet. No need to get into that until football season was over—and every reason not to.

The other thing I wanted to do was take my new car for a drive, and Jordan and Molly were already clamoring for me to do just that. We managed to get all five of us into what was essentially the same 2+2 seating arrangement as a Mustang, with Jordan and Mom in the back and Molly in Dad’s lap in the front passenger seat.

“Take her out to the highway and back, honey,” Dad said to me, and I noticed what he’d called me but decided not to worry about that until later. But I did as suggested, driving out of town toward Wilcox before turning back when the steeper incline started.

Molly and Jordan wanted me to open it up, but I ignored them. Mom gave me a smile in the rearview mirror. Time enough to see what it could do when I was alone. I drove back to the dealership at family car speeds, disappointing my sisters. “You’re going to have trouble with that one when it’s time to get her a car,” I said to Dad, indicating Molly with a grin.

She squealed, of course, and Jordan protested from the back seat, “Hey! I’m next!”

“You’re next for the station wagon,” Dad suggested over his shoulder. “When you get your license,” He added with a grin and wink at me. I heard someone giggle, and hoped it was Mom and not me.

We unloaded in the side lot at the dealership, and I confessed to Dad, “I thought you were calling me down to wash cars.”

He laughed at that. “I don’t think I’ll be doing that much anymore. Maybe I can get Jordan to do it,” he said with a sly look in her direction.

“Not until next summer,” she countered.

That made me pause, wondering just what I would look like come next summer. Back in early August, Megan, Joanna, and the other cheerleaders had raised money for uniforms and equipment with a “charity” carwash. In bikinis.

I felt myself blushing.

* * *

Later, after sorting out who would ride with who, and my sisters winning seats in the new car, I dropped them off at our door and headed over to Jake’s. The Saturday team meeting was still more than two hours away, and I wanted to show off my new baby.

The October morning still had the crisp feel of a new day even though it was almost noon, and I rode with all the windows down, enjoying the breeze in my hair. I hadn’t had a haircut since summer, but it seemed like my dark locks had grown faster than could be expected. I refused to think about it. If my hair got too long, I’d get it cut.

I parked on what passed for a lawn at Jake’s, next to his behemoth of a truck. Climbing out of my new ride, I caught a glimpse of my grin in the mirror on the side of the bigger vehicle. I looked a bit manic and idiotic, but I didn’t really care.

I reached back inside the Capri to give a single toot on the horn. One beep meant ‘come outside,’ and two meant ‘I’m coming in’—a code Jake and I had used since we both got wheels. Sure enough, Jake appeared at his door in less than a minute.

He sauntered down his back steps, taking in the scene—me standing there gesturing broadly at the Capri like I was presenting a prize on some game show. Jake frowned, then smiled and even grinned, as he seemed to realize what my presence with such a sporty car meant.

“Jesus,” he commented as he got closer. “Your car looks like something my truck would date!”

“You like my Baby Blue?” I asked, not having realized I had named it mentally until I spoke.

“I’d better,” he said, his grin even wider. “Your Dad called me down to the lot a week ago to help him pick out which car to give you.”

I looked from him back to the Capri. “And you picked this one?”

He nodded. “I suggested a Mustang, but the only used one they had on the lot was an old ’68. So, he said this was the next closest thing that was still a Ford. It’s kind of a Euro pony car, huh?”

“Uh-huh,” I agreed. “Don’t tell me you already took it for a drive?”

“Sure, I did,” he said. “Did you look at the power plant? She’s got a 2.8-liter V6. And she’s like 300 pounds lighter than a ‘Stang!”

I hadn’t looked, I realized—and what was even odder, Dad hadn’t tried to show it to me. While I was puzzling about that, Jake strode up to me and put out his hand for the key. I surrendered it to his big paw, and he bumped me out of the way with a shoulder. “Climb in!” he said. “We can take her up to the Rim and get back before our team meeting. This may look like a chick’s car, but she can scoot!”

 

---

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“You can all watch it!”

Jake demonstrated how well Baby Blue could scoot, taking us out the back way from his neighborhood and joining the highway partway up the long straight climb north of town that led to a series of switchbacks. The noise from the open windows became a roar as Jake accelerated up the long pull.

We probably hit eighty on the straightaway, but I felt relaxed. Jake was a driver I could trust. I could feel and hear that the car still had top left when Jake eased the throttle to take the first switchback. We both knew this road well—three hairpins, then a wide curve and three more. Then Jake took the turnout to Lookaway Point, easing into the parking slot with all of Star Valley below us.

Jake pulled the parking brake, and we got out of the car, approaching the rugged old telescope with the too-narrow field of view that was there just for tourists. Jake tossed me the keys, and I pocketed them, still feeling a thrill of ownership. We walked right to the edge of the paved part, where Jake leaned on the four-foot retaining wall, his long arms making a tripod.

I stood there staring at him—I’m not sure why.

“We’re gonna miss this view when we go away to college,” Jake commented flatly.

“Yeah, I guess.” Would I be going to college? Best not think about that—but it was unlikely that Jake and I would go to the same school. Especially now, with what had happened to me.

“You been up here with Megan?” he asked.

“Couple of times,” I said.

“Joanna likes to come up and make out with her round butt sitting on the wall,” he said with a quirk of a smile.

I considered that. The other side of the wall was a drop of about eight feet to a steep slope that wasn’t quite a cliff. Brush and chaparral and small trees would stop you from rolling very far if you fell, but getting back up to the Point would be a job. It sounded like a risk Joanna would enjoy.

“If the light is good,” Jake continued, “practically the whole town can see who’s up here by which cars are in the lot.”

Another attraction for Joanna, I decided—an audience. I glanced at Baby Blue. The Capri was not a car that would be recognized yet, so no one down in the Valley could tell who we were that way. Jake’s big red truck and Joanna’s jaundiced Beetle were well-known, though.

I looked down at the valley again, picking out landmarks: the Ford shop at the east end of town, the Medical Center off the south road, Megan’s trailer park near the airport to the west—and of course, the high school football field in the middle of the town. Almost directly below us were the parking half-rings for the El Tesoro Drive-In, one of Friendly’s two places to see movies.

I could trace the route I took last night from Megan’s up another spur of the mountains, almost to the old logging camp—just out of sight around a curve of the highlands. The gravel pit was in another canyon off in that direction, and I couldn’t even find the road to it. Less thought sent that direction, the better, I knew.

“Are you crying?” Jake asked suddenly.

I shrugged, feeling my lip tremble. I was looking at Baby Blue now, and something in my chest just ached.

“What the hell are you crying about?” Jake wanted to know. He sounded like he wanted to tuck his tail between his legs and run.

The wind whipped at us, and I might have been able to blame it for my tears, but instead, I blurted out, “My daddy gave me a car, and it’s beautiful!”

* * *

We couldn’t get off that mountain fast enough. We loaded up, me in the driver’s seat this time, and headed back down the long hill. Neither of us said a word after my outburst. I could still feel my face burning, and Jake looked as if he were chewing on nails and hadn’t decided whether he liked the taste.

I felt lightheaded. Friendly sits almost a mile high, and we had been up another thousand feet or so, short of the crest of the Rim by two thousand, at least. But the thin air didn’t explain my feelings. Something else was going on.

I glanced at Jake and had to suppress laughter now. He looked so pissed off. I knew he wouldn’t appreciate it if I giggled, though. What new curse had I been afflicted with? My emotions were running wildly around the landscape like a hunting dog on too long of a lead.

“Let’s just go straight to the Barn for the meeting. Joanna’s gonna pick me up there.”

“‘Kay,” I agreed.

The lot was crowded behind Barn o’Pizza because we had managed to arrive a few minutes late, and I had to park across the alley, which actually suited me. No need to find a safe place for Baby Blue in the crowd of jalopies, jeeps and junkyard pick-ups. This was different from parking the Mom Wagon. Baby was mine!

The rowdy bunch of Friendly Lions had claimed the back room, and big pans of pizza were already being distributed. A pause in the noise as we entered allowed me to overhear someone ask, “Who’s that with Jake?”

I didn’t hear if anyone answered.

Leland Frick and Coach Wilson were at the front of the wide room, setting up the big whiteboard to serve as a screen for Lee’s home movies and Coach’s chalk talk. But no one wastes time trying to get the attention of the animals until they’ve been fed. Jake and I made our way to the table we usually sat at, semi-reserved for us by the protocol of teams. Jake and I were star players, so we sat near Coach.

Jake had claimed a pitcher of root beer, and I had snagged the cheese and pepper shakers we needed. The food smelled spicy and inviting, and soon I had eaten my third slice. I had my eye on a bacon and pineapple pie that had just landed on our table when someone yelled out, “Hey! It’s Pete!”

And soon, I was hearing congratulations and cheers, mostly for the way I had variously kicked, stomped, or otherwise messed up the Bulldog running back.

“But I didn’t!” I protested. I had actually begun to think of Ginger, who wore #17 like I did, as sort of a friend—or at least a friendly competitor. But the Lions’ blood was up, and they reveled in recounting to each other how I had viciously broken Ginger’s ankle or stove in his ribs. Four different people claimed to have seen me turn savage—all of it made up, because it just didn’t happen.

I don’t know what my face might have looked like, but Jake suddenly grabbed my chin and turned me to face him. I really couldn’t hear him in the hubbub, but I could sort of read his lips. “Don’t you start crying now!” he was saying.

He let go, and I shook my head. “Meatheads!” I yelled back at him, and he nodded.

I debated a retreat to the bathroom but decided that was the last place I wanted to go. We’d been in there when Jake had pulled the damfool stunt that left him with an almost broken hand.

But Lee climbed onto a chair and brought relative quiet to the mob by promising, loudly, “I’ve got the hit Pete put on the running ‘Dog on film. You can all watch it!”

The Beast roared its approval, and Lee moved to the controls of the projector, sitting almost behind me and to my left. “Someone get the light,” Lee called out, and it got dark, (or at least darkish, since the sun still shone through a high bank of windows on one wall).

And suddenly there I was on the screen, running down the field after our kickoff, angling toward the corner where Ginger waited to take the kick and try to run it back.

“When did my ass get so round?” I wondered. But there it was, center screen in tight satin-blue football pants, the obvious focus of Lee’s filming.

Laughter filled the room, and someone yelled, “Nice buns!”

I would have died if I could take Lee with me.

---

Pete -35- In the Pocket on Patreon now!

“Jump his bones!” the crowd screamed.

The room got rowdy and stayed rowdy. I cringed when they cheered the footage showing me taking down Ginger.

“Stomp him! Kick him!” they screamed, even though the film showed me bringing down Bulldog #17 in a textbook clean tackle.

“Way to go, Petey!” they shouted, and someone added, “Nail that fucker!”

I glanced at Jake, and he was holding out a hand, palm up for me to give him some skin. I turned away and saw Lee Frick frantically stabbing at the controls on the projector. For a second or two, the film ran backward, showing me falling on Ginger, then forward again like a sequence from Fractured Flickers.

“Jump his bones!” the crowd screamed. “Fuck him over!”

The film jammed, and the images stopped moving. Lee pulled the plug, stopping the projector before it burned the celluloid. Coach was standing and calling for everyone to calm down.

My expression must have finally penetrated Jake’s thick skull because his changed to puzzlement.

“Show it again!” someone yelled. “Yeah, Lee! Let’s see Pete slam that bitch to the ground!”

“Petey! Pete! Pete! Petey! Pete! Pete!” They screamed, drowning out Coach’s attempt to quiet them down.

Lee was staring at me, his mouth open in horror, probably mirroring my own.

I found myself in the hallway outside the bathrooms, not knowing how I got there. I guess I ran in one of those blind panics you read about. I paused with my hand on the handle of the men’s room door. Someone was inside, someone from the other part of the restaurant—a couple of adults, from the voices.

“What?” one of them yelled. “I can’t hear you! Those kids in the back room are too loud!”

“I think they’re still charged up over their win last night. They’re going to AIS again this year, looks like.”

“Yeah!”

“What?”

“Yeah, I said, yeah! Maybe they’ll take it all the way this time!”

“Could be! If something don’t happen to the Peterson kid!”

They laughed, and I turned away, making my way through the other door.

#

The women’s room was empty, and I turned out the lights, then claimed one of the back stalls in the dark. I sat on the toilet seat and pulled my feet up so no one could see my shoes under the door, even if the lights came back on.

The riot in the back room continued. I could hear Coach bellowing for quiet. After a bit, I heard people calling for me. “Pete?” It sounded like Lee, but then later, I heard Jake checking the men’s room, calling my name.

I stayed quiet and didn’t move, and the only sound I might have made was a stifled sob. I wasn’t just upset—I was terrified. What would a gang of crazy jocks do to me if they found out my secret? I could guess, but I didn’t want to find out.

Maybe it would be safest to just give up playing football, rather than be torn to pieces. I’d heard football called a blood sport and compared to Roman gladiatorial combat, but that had been by people who didn’t really like sports. Now I could kind of see the point of their argument.

I sniffled quietly, trying not to feel sorry for myself, sitting there in the dark, hiding in the women’s room. My teammates were all crazy, wanting to see me hurt Ginger, who played the same position I played on a different team. Were there guys in the Bulldog’s hometown crying out for my blood?

I hadn’t eaten much, but my stomach cramped, and I felt like if I got down off the stool, I would have to throw up.

I don’t know how long I stayed there, listening as other people called out for me. I didn’t answer. My toes started to go numb from how I was crouched on the seat. I felt sick, my stomach tasted sour in the back of my throat, and even my skin felt tender when I wrapped my arms around me to stop my hands from trembling.

The noise in the other rooms faded away. Maybe I’d been there for hours, I didn’t know. Maybe the restaurant would close, and I could sneak out and go home.

Someone came into the room, complaining, “Why are the lights off?” The lights came back on with a click, and I blinked.

“Is there anyone in here?” a girl’s voice called out, echoing a bit like voices always do in bathrooms.

I put extra effort into staying quiet, even holding my breath.

“Huh?” she said, and someone behind her seemed to have said something in reply.

“Yeah,” the first girl answered. “My dad warned me about the same thing, never go into a dark bathroom.” Their voices had that echoey quality from all the tile, porcelain and metal. It made them hard to understand, but I concentrated on listening while keeping quiet.

“Someone could be hiding in the dark, or in one of the stalls,” the second voice said.

“The door of the back stall is closed,” the first voice pointed out.

“Yeah.”

They both went quiet for a bit. “Is anyone in here?” one of them called out again.

I heard footsteps on the tile as someone approached my hiding place. She tried the door. Why did it have to be a brave girl and not someone who would chicken out?

“It’s latched from the inside,” she said. “Someone’s in there!”

Then Joanna Linklatter’s face appeared in the space below the door, looking up at me.

She grinned, her face mostly upside-down, so it looked bizarre and almost comical. “You were right, Megan,” she said. “It’s Pete!”

---

Pete -36- Endzone

He took both my hands in his, startling me. “I’d like to make it up to you."

“Hi, Pete,” said Joanna, her face visible from under the door. She twiddled her fingers at me in a cheerleader wave.

“How did…” I started to ask, but Megan interrupted.

“When the guys couldn’t find you, we knew where you must be.” Her head was now visible beside Joanna’s.

“Rats,” I said. I sat back so I could extend my feet to the floor. My legs cramped a bit, but I felt even worse everywhere else.

“You’re the only boy in the school who might think they could get away with hiding in the girls’ room,” Joanna commented with a snort. They got out of the way so I could open the door, and Megan immediately gave me a hug.

I grunted because I felt a bit sore in the middle, probably from how I was perched on the toilet seat.

“You need someone to sneak you out of here,” Joanna suggested.

I grunted again and winced. Something wasn’t right, but I wasn’t aware really of how bad I felt until Megan said, “Don’t cry, Petey. It’ll be okay.”

I felt my face twist up and tried to resist.

“She’s already been crying,” Joanna commented. “I think you were right, Megan.”

“Pretty sure of it,” agreed my girl.

I didn’t react much to Joanna calling me ‘she’ because I knew she was a bitch and would take the opportunity to stick a needle in someone. If Joanna played football, Ginger would have a broken ankle for real. I made a face at her, and she laughed.

“Give Megan your keys, Petey,” the head cheerleader ordered. “We’ll go out the back and distract everyone, you go out the front, and Megan can come around in your car to pick you up.”

I almost felt grateful to Joanna for taking charge. She hurried out with another toodle-oo wave, and Megan and I followed her into the hall.

Joanna paused before going to the door of the backroom. She raised a finger as she spoke to us. “Ice cream party, my house tonight. Be there and bring your own pint. Both of you.”

I frowned at her, but Megan said, “We’ll be there,” then she kissed me on the cheek. “Petey, Pete, Pete. I have to stand on tiptoe to kiss you now!” She mock complained.

I turned to kiss her back, but was late and only managed to plant one on her cheek as she disappeared following Joanna.

“What’s an ice cream party?” I asked no one before turning into the short hall and heading to the dining rooms in the front. When I passed the door to the kitchen, one of the Mexican cooks whistled at me. A fan, I guess, but I hurried into the frontmost dining room feeling a strange unfocussed anxiety.

I heard a familiar clatter before I reached the front door. Leland Frick, with his built-up left shoe, awkwardly climbed down off a stool near the door.

“Pete,” he said. He looked stricken, like he’d had some bad salad.

I didn’t want to stop, but I did. “Lee,” I began but realized, I really had nothing to say.

“Pete,” said Lee. “I wanted to apologize. I never meant to start anything like that.”

I remembered the first sequence of the film where he had apparently zoomed in on my butt running down the field. I frowned at him. Despite having one leg shorter than the other, Lee is over six feet tall, and I still had to look up at him, even with the height I had gained.

“I had no idea the guys would go crazy! It was like a feeding frenzy for real lions!” He grinned at his own joke.

“Why are you waiting here?” I asked, amused in spite of myself at his lame attempt at humor.

“I figured you must be in the building somewhere because your car is still here,” he explained. “And with Coach and the guys in back, I figured you’d try to come out the front.”

I guess I am that predictable. I frowned at him again.

“I feel terrible,” he said, stepping closer. “I know you’re not a bloodthirsty fool like the other players.”

“Huh,” I said, trying to edge around him.

He took both my hands in his, startling me. “I’d like to make it up to you. Have you seen the new Alien movie?”

“Uh, no,” I admitted. “Megan won’t go to horror movies.”

“It’s science fiction more than horror, but I know you wouldn’t be scared.” He grinned. “It’s been in the Traildust downtown for two months, and it’s in the El Tesoro now for one last week. Wanna go see it? My van is really comfortable for seeing movies at the drive-in.”

I managed to get out of there as quickly as I could by agreeing that Lee could pick me up at 5 p.m. on Sunday. Then I stood on the pavement outside Pizza Barn waiting for Megan to come around in Baby Blue.”

Had I just agreed to go on a date with a boy? With Leland Frick!? Who had been taking movies of my ass?!

---

Pete's Vagina -37- Clotheslined - on Patreon

“About once a month, on average, yeah.”

I felt dazed and sour. Being on the football field wasn’t as dangerous and scary as the thought of the sort of social gymnastics people like Joanna excelled at. Lee Frick had done some kind of verbal judo on me, and now I had a date to go see a movie with him. At the drive-in! In his van!

It wasn’t like Jake, and I had never gone to movies together without dates, but this was different. Lee had asked me, and I guess I couldn’t figure out how to refuse him. It wasn’t that he used his disability to claim special privileges. He worked his butt off being cinematographer and student manager for the football team and other athletics. And he was a genuinely nice guy.

I sighed, then looked up when I heard a short melodious tootling. Megan drove Baby Blue around the building from the parking lot behind Pizza Barn and pulled to the curb, grinning at me through the rolled-down passenger window. “Get in, Pete!” she ordered. “We’ve got to make a stop to buy ice cream for the party!”

I almost stumbled, stepping down from the sidewalk to the street, but managed not to embarrass myself with a pratfall. It irritated me a little that, once again, I would be the passenger in my own new car, but I climbed in and leaned across the center console to give Megan a peck on the cheek, which she returned before pulling out into the Saturday afternoon traffic.

“Smith’s okay for the ice cream, or do you want to splurge on Baskin-Robbins?” she asked.

I shrugged. “Why is it an ice cream party? Is this something you guys,” meaning the cheerleaders, “do often?”

Megan grinned even wider, showing her dimples. “About once a month, on average, yeah.”

“Huh,” I grunted. I had never heard of it before, and the doings of the cheerleaders were something often on the minds and in the conversations of football players.

“And it’s called an ice cream party because that’s a better name than a Midol party,” she added with a giggle.

I started to ask what Midol was when I remembered the little bottle of pills Dr. Verre had given me—along with a brochure entitled, “So You’re Having Your First Period….”

I gulped a breath and tried to swallow it before coughing out a feeble sounding, “Oh, hell no!”

I felt sick, but not in a way I’d ever felt before. My insides were tender, as if they were swollen and too close to my skin, which responded with prickly sensations where my clothes were touching me. The nearest thing I could think of was the time I’d been sick for three days with food poisoning, and it took me a week to recover.

The queasiness and discomfort were more than just annoying, but the worry about what all this meant seemed likely to be a continuing distraction. I felt disconnected, out of sync, like the really bad dubbing you see in some foreign films.

On the other hand…. The afternoon light filtering through the trees struck me as peculiarly beautiful and poignant, if that is the word. Something magical, perhaps? My eyes burned, and I wondered if I were about to cry. Wondering about something like that was as new to me as crying.

“This is a really nice car,” Megan announced as we turned into the parking lot at Smith’s.

I nodded, still processing the idea of the ice cream party and what it implied. “Every month?” I squeaked out, and Megan laughed but looked sympathetic.

“At least there’s a party to look forward to,” she offered in consolation.

We made our way toward the frozen food section, Megan commenting on the way, “You have to learn some coping skills. Every girl needs them. A big one is the support of friends, the company of people who know what you’re going through. Another is,” she stopped in front of a freezer door, “chocolate brownie fudge ice cream.”

I smiled weakly, but it did sound good.

She handed me a pint and suggested we get something else, too. “Two different flavors, you know? Any requests?”

“Um, mint chocolate chip?”

“Yeah,” she agreed. “You’re getting the hang of this already.”

I made a noise. “I don’t want to get too good at it.”

She laughed, responding. “Tough,” as she handed me another pint.

When we checked out, the cashier commented, “Joanna throwing another party? You two are the fourth and fifth girls to buy pints tonight.”

Damn, I thought, but there was nothing for it. Maybe I needed to get a new haircut. I could even shave it all off, I supposed.

“Don’t do anything drastic just ‘cause she saw through your disguise,” Megan warned as we climbed into Baby Blue, me on the driver’s side this time.

“It’s not a disguise,” I grumped. “Do I really look so different?”

“Hmm,” she murmured, examining my profile. “It’s subtle, I guess. Your skin is so clear now, and most boys your age have a bit of beard showing somewhere.”

“I never had a beard, you know,” I complained. “I’m just fucked!”

“I think not tonight,” she joked. “You have a headache.”

I frowned at her. “Is that what that means when girls say that?”

“Uh-huh. Usually.”

I rubbed my forehead. “You’re giving me a headache!” I said, but she kept grinning.

#

Joanna’s folks’ house at the Eastern end of town overlooked the golf course from a street lined with the sort of mansions you think of Hollywood types living in. I counted six cars parked at random angles on the long driveway that curved out to the street on both ends. “How many people come to these parties?” I asked Megan after finding what seemed like a safe place to park.

“Well,” she mused while handing me my pint of ice cream in a brown paper bag, “there are eight varsity cheerleaders, and most of them show up, plus three or four other girls from the other squads or teams or just friends or even little sisters. Almost anybody who’s on the same schedule, or who just wants to be supportive and eat ice cream.”

“Huh,” I grunted, taking a couple of quick steps to catch up. I’d been distracted by a deer at the far edge of the front lawn, which it turned out was an iron statue. “Teams?” I asked. “Schedule?”

“Teams,” Megan amplified. “The girls’ soccer team has a winning streak going, and the volleyball team is doing well, too, though their season hasn’t started yet.”

I hadn’t even considered the school’s athletic teams for girls. Another thought tried to crowd its way in. If I couldn’t play football, did I still have choices? But Megan distracted me again.

“And you know, not everyone has their period at the same time,” she was saying.

“Oh,” I said. “Wow, yeah, that would be….”

“Grim,” said Megan with a giggle. I laughed, too, and it came out sounding like a nervous giggle. I hated that, but the idea of a school with half the students feeling like I did right then was not really amusing.

Two girls were getting out of an obvious mom-wagon and waved at us. I thought I recognized the younger one as a friend of Jordan, my sister. Magda, Marsha, Madeline? Something with an M. The other girl must be her older sister. I had never noticed a resemblance before, but I recognized her as one of the varsity cheerleaders, Catalina Chase. And she recognized me!

“Pete!” she squealed. “You’re here!? So it’s true what Joanna has been saying?”

My mouth fell open, but I couldn’t reply. Megan grabbed my hand that wasn’t holding the bag of ice cream and squeezed. I wanted to hide behind her, but I didn’t move.

The younger girl stared at me. “You’re Pete Peterson, aren’t you? From the football team?”

I nodded. Well, I couldn’t deny that. But I remembered Megan had said that Joanna told the varsity squad about me, and no one had believed her.

“Jordan’s big brother?” Madrigal (I remembered her name) asked.

“Sort of,” I admitted. “But my real name is Gayle.” Now why did I have to say that?

---

Read the next chapter NOW on Patreon: Pete's Vagina -38- Snap

“Ain’t you never been skinny-dipping, Petey?”

“There must be fifteen different kinds of chocolate ice cream here,” I remarked to Megan as we deposited our pints on the iced serving table in the big family room of Joanna’s parents’ house. Mansion really.

I’d been here before, and I shuddered a bit, remembering the morning…. Shit! Was that only last weekend? I felt dizzy.

Megan didn’t seem to notice, so I guess I didn’t stagger around or anything. She giggled. “Well, there are probably at least that many girls here,” she remarked.

“Huh?” I said intelligently, having forgotten what I had just said.

Megan continued. “Seven Varsity cheerleaders, four Jayvee, and I think two or three of the freshman squad are making it this time.”

“Plus me,” said another voice. A woman stood near the door to the kitchen with what looked like a highball glass in her hand. She seemed amused, and I recognized a resemblance to Joanna in the blonde, blue-eyed Aryan Princess presentation.

“I’m Beverly, Joanna’s aunt, and the designated adult for this party,” she continued, looking directly at me. “Mmm,” she added as if speaking to a narrator hidden in the butler’s pantry, “She does look pretty butch.” She made a motion with the highball as if toasting me. The amber liquid in her glass sloshed, and the ice cubes clinked.

“What?” Megan glared at the woman, and I felt the beginning of my own dislike.

I took Megan’s arm and steered her away from any further confrontation. “We’ve been here before,” I said, remembering the morning I had woken up in an upstairs bedroom minus an important part of my anatomy. The memory didn’t put me in a good mood.

Megan might have caught the direction my thoughts had strayed because she linked arms with me and continued a purposeful stroll. “I’ve been here lots of times. Let me show you the wonders of Chez Linklatter.”

“You certainly don’t look big enough or strong enough to play football on the boys’ team,” Beverly said to my back. “I think Joanna is an inch or two taller than you, and your girlfriend there has more meat on her.”

I ignored her and followed Megan, whose stiffened back was making a beeline for a set of French doors near the bottom of the wide staircase in the middle of the ground floor.

“The house has all the stuff you could expect,” Megan was saying, sounding a bit distracted. I could sense she was seething but wanted to avoid a scene with Beverly. I put an arm around her waist and gave her a small squeeze.

She continued with the real estate spiel, distracting both of us. “Seven bedrooms, nine bathrooms, a library, a parlor, a wet bar, servants’ quarters… but it has something you don’t expect to find in Arizona.” She opened the big doors and stood out of my way so I could see.

“An indoor swimming pool,” she said, gesturing like a game show hostess at the extravagant add-on room at least forty feet long and twenty feet wide, with a huge rectangular pool taking up more than half the space. Markers painted above the waterline declared it to be seven feet deep at one end and three at the other.

There were three figures in the pool… and not a swimsuit in sight.

“Oop!” Megan made a noise and tried to close the doors again.

I started to back away from the scene while behind us, Beverly broke into guffaws.

“The water’s perfect,” said Joanna from the deep end of the pool. “C’mon in, it’s won-nn-nderful!”

“I—I don’t have a suit,” I said inanely.

“You see anyone wearing a suit?” Joanna demanded with a sly grin. “C’mon, Petey, the water’s fine. It’s heated and will help relieve any cramps you might be having.”

Just as she said that I felt a stab in my middle as if someone had grabbed at my inside and tried to strum a G-chord. I must have winced because Joanna’s grin got wider, and the two other —naked!— girls in the pool giggled but tried to look sympathetic. I only recognized one of them, Sonia, a darker Joanna-clone from the varsity squad.

Megan took my arm but did not try to pull me away.

Beverly was suddenly beside me on the other side. “Ain’t you never been skinny-dipping, Petey?” she purred the question, taking my other arm.

I shrugged her off and managed to back up two steps, Megan following. “Not since I was ten,” I admitted.

#

I flashed on the scene in my memory. Jake and I had gone down to Star Creek while on a camping trip with our families. Jake had taken his clothes off first and dared me to follow him into the water.

“It’ll be cold!” I protested. Star Creek ran right off the taller mountains beyond our edge of the Mogollon Rim. Even in August, you could probably find snow and ice in the deeper canyons under trees and shrubs.

“Sissy,” Jake had accused. “It’s only agony for a moment, then it’s warm, once you’re in.”

I did it. At least, I remembered doing it. Taking off my clothes and putting a rock on top of the pile of shorts, socks, and T-shirts, then threw myself in, trying to splash Jake as much as I could. He’d been right, though. The water was so cold it sucked all the air out of my lungs. I flailed around, gasping and trying to get my breath back.

I might have drowned, but I remember instead lying on the creek bank with Jake kneeling over me. “Petey?” he said. “Petey, you’ve got to be okay!”

“‘M-okay,” I managed. “B-but I’m s-so cold!”

Then Jake laughed and hugged me. “You’re okay! You’re all right!”

We hugged some more, then we got dressed and made it back to the campground without anyone missing us, though our mothers commented that our hair was wet.

Later, that long ago night in our sleeping bags, Jake had teased me. “That water was so cold,” he said. “So cold that your stuff crawled up inside you to try to get warm!”

I knew he was just teasing me, but I got scared, and I reached down to check. If it had gone up inside me, what if it didn’t come back out?

Had I dreamed that part? Or was that when it happened?

#

But I wasn’t camping on Star Creek. I was in the pool room at Joanna Linklater’s house, and she was laughing at me. I shook off the memory with a shiver, facing Joanna.

“Big strong football player, afraid that the water is too cold,” she cackled. “C’mon, Petey. You’re okay. Nobody here but us girls.”

I looked at Megan, and she shrugged. “I will if you will,” she suggested, not eager but willing to back me up.

“But then they’ll know!” I protested.

“They already know,” she pointed out.

“They only think they know ‘cause Joanna told them,” I countered. “If they see me naked, they’ll know for sure!” I felt my face scrunch up. “What if they tell everyone? I won’t get to finish out the season. I won’t be able to play football!”

“Jeez! Petey! There’s more to life than football!”

I was crying. I knew I was crying, and I couldn’t stop. Was football all I had that made being me worth it? It was a large part of it, I decided. Not everything, but football was important. My confusion cleared up, and I nodded at Megan. At the moment, she was the only ally I could count on.

But what if I had a whole squad of allies…?

I nodded to Megan again, and we both started shedding our jackets. It was still October outside, but you wouldn’t know it in the damp warmth of the pool room. Still, the water was probably cold.

Sonia and the other girl in the pool waded to the shallow end, laughing and giggling. “You coming swimming, Pete?” Sonia asked.

“Yay! Petey’s gonna swim with us!” the other girl squealed.

“Yah, Petey,” Joanna called out, pulling herself out of the water with the ladder. All three had little strings, maybe six inches long, hanging from their groins.

My mouth fell open again.

“Ice cream party rules for the pool, of course,” Joanna said. “If you’re going swimming, you’re going to need a tampon, too, Petey!”

“Men are all pricks, and the only reason we date them is because they have one.”

Megan had to show me how, of course, but putting the thing up inside me was less trauma than I expected. The little plastic tube went in; you pressed the plunger and pulled the tube out, leaving the little bundle as a cork. And it had a convenient string attached for when it came time to remove it.

“You’re giggling, aren’t you,” Megan accused.

I nodded. “Just remembering the last time I had something up there,” I said around a sour smile. “That thing…in the motel….”

“…the dildo,” she said (like I hadn’t known what it was called).

“…yeah… I almost lost my mind when you turned it on.”

Now she was giggling. “Oh, you meant the vibrator!” she said, maybe a bit too loud.

Beverly cackled from the doorway. We’d gone into a little den near the piano room (yes, they had a room just for pianos, two of them), but we hadn’t realized it had more than one door.

Joanna’s aunt, who couldn’t be more than five or ten years older than us, sipped her highball and chuckled. “Sounds like you girls know how to have fun.”

She winked at me, and I knew exactly what she meant by the gesture. Yikes!

“So, Megan, you and Gayle have gotten it on?”

“Call me ‘Pete’,” I protested, but she ignored me now, watching Megan the way a rattlesnake watches a prairie dog hole.

Megan looked at me. “Uh, yeah, I guess….” She trailed off, I wasn’t sure why. “But Pete was my boyfriend before….”

“Oh,” I grunted. Maybe trying to tell people what actually happened wasn’t a good idea?

“Before you found out Gayle was a girl?” Beverly took another sip of her drink.

“Yeah,” Megan drawled it out as if trying to think faster than the speed of sound.

“Call me ‘Pete’,” I said again, drawing Aunt Busybody’s attention to me and off Megan. “That’s what everyone calls me.”

The ice in her glass clicked against her teeth as Beverly drained the last bit of whatever liquid it had contained. “Even your family?” she asked.

“Well, no,” I admitted. “They call me Hunter.”

Beverly stared at her ice cubes for a moment, then looked up at me a little cross-eyed. Maybe she had started drinking well before we got to the party. I looked away, a little embarrassed, which was becoming a chronic condition for me.

“Hunter?” she said, making it a question and apparently shaking off a bit of blurriness. “Why the fuck would they call you ‘Hunter’?”

“It’s my middle name,” I said, just as Joanna barged in through the door that Megan and I had entered by.

“Petey!” she shouted. “C’mon, Number 17, shake your skinny booty. We’re waiting for you at the ol’ swimming hole!”

Megan and I took the invitation to get out of there, following Joanna back to the pool room. It was a stupid conversation, anyway.

The head cheerleader broke into laughter as I got closer. “Look!” she exclaimed. “Pete’s a Chatty Cathy, too!”

I glared at Joanna, and Megan rolled her eyes. She traded a glance with me, as if to ask if I needed that explained, but I had seen the commercials for the doll that talked when you pulled its string, so: No.

Joanna turned and sprinted ahead of us, almost but not quite tripping on the plastic rug placed near the French doors to deal with drippy people coming into the house. We followed more slowly.

Just before we got to the opening, something else occurred to me. “We’re naked,” I said to Megan.

She nodded and paused in the doorway to let me catch up. “.

“Everyone else is, too,” she noted.

It was true. Joanna made a flat dive into the pool just then, and several girls squealed. A quick count came to seven in the water, three more in lounge chairs under the skylight, plus Megan and me. A dozen skinny-dipping girls, most of them cheerleaders.

Would this have been a dream come true two weeks ago? Because it wasn’t now. I was looking at the other girls and… and… well, I felt something, but it wasn’t lust. They all seemed so comfortable just being who they were.

And hadn’t I just thought it? The other girls….

I guess what I felt was envy. Maybe a little jealous of their being so comfortable with who they were.

* * *

The water in the pool was as warm as August, with only a breath of humid air moving above it. Did they keep it warm all through the winter? It doesn’t get that cold in Friendly, but we have snow almost every January. It probably costs a fortune just to heat the big old house, let alone an indoor pool.

No business of mine, I decided.

I waded in at the shallow end, then dog-paddled out to deeper water. It all felt very odd, and I seemed to be more buoyant than I remembered being. I used to walk on the bottom of the pool because it took effort to float; now, no — I floated easily and felt nearly weightless in the water.

Parts of me wanted to float a little more than other parts, a bit of positive bounciness in the chest, as the water flowed around me when I or one of the girls moved. One of the other girls….

Everyone laughed and talked and pretty much ignored me. It was so very, very odd. I felt like the invisible boy — but to be truthful, I didn’t feel at all like a boy. How could I, naked in a pool with eight or nine cheerleaders, all of us with strings hanging from our…, our badge of acceptance into the Ice Cream Party Sisterhood.

If I wasn’t a boy, then I must be a girl, and as long as I got to play football, I guess I didn’t mind that much. Weird thought, but I was finding it easy to enjoy myself. There were squeals when someone splashed someone, but mostly it was laughing and talking and giggling.

“Look,” someone said. “Gayle’s a member of the itty-bitty-titty committee, too.”

I dove and swam underwater to escape that conversation, feeling my little breast buds being pushed up by the water. I didn’t need attention called to them. And wouldn’t anyone call me Petey anymore?

When I got my head above water again, Megan was beside me. “Having fun, Petey?” she asked.

I nodded. “Yeah, I am. I’m sorry for, um, being such a drama queen earlier.” I smiled to show that I got the irony of what I was saying.

She laughed. “You’re entitled,” she said. “In fact, for the next five days or so, you’re expected to be emotional, maybe irrational. It’s a crock, mostly, but it makes a good excuse.”

We both laughed at that. Megan laughed harder, pointing at me and accusing me of blushing. I probably was, but it was also a huge relief to discover I had a place where I was accepted that wasn’t a roomful of bloodthirsty jocks.

Joanna had somehow disappeared and came back into the poolroom wearing a towel to announce munchies and a movie in the big family room. A stack of huge towels was available.

Megan had shown me in the motel how to twist one into a sort of dress, and I did so, like everyone else, without much thinking about it. And with a lot of squealing and laughing, everybody went back inside the main house.

“Movie?” I whispered to Megan.

“Mr. Linklater,” she explained, “owns both movie houses in town and usually keeps a few prints of old movies around for emergency showings. And he has his own private 35mm projector at home.”

“Cool,” I agreed.

“So, what are we going to see?” someone asked while heaping goodies like wieners and cheese and veggie sticks on their plates.

“Tonight’s feature is Cactus Flower with Goldie Hawn and Walter Matthau,” Joanna announced in a fake television voice.

Several cheers broke out, but Beverly booed. “It’s a ten-year-old stinker,” she claimed.

Joanna ignored her, and soon the movie started, the big family room making a pretty good home theater.

Megan and I sat together and shared popcorn. I didn’t remember ever having seen Cactus Flower before, and the opening scenes with a suicide attempt almost made me get up and leave the room. Megan held my hand, though, and I got through that.

Afterward, we all sampled each other’s ice cream and discussed the movie.

The consensus seemed to be that Walter Matthau’s character was just the sort of lying, manipulative crud that most boyfriends turned out to be. I laughed along with everybody else at that judgment. Almost everyone had identified with Goldie Hawn’s character, the lied-to girlfriend. Even me, I discovered.

“Does anybody have a decent boyfriend?” someone asked. Several girls jumped to their boyfriends’ defense, despite having just bashed boys as a group. I noticed Joanna didn’t defend Jake. It was all pretty entertaining, with a lot of laughter.

“Let’s face it,” Beverly announced, “Men are all pricks, and the only reason we date them is because they have one.”

That got some boos and more laughter.

But Joanna called Megan out, “You’re the only one here who isn’t dating a guy,” she noted.

More laughs, and I felt my face go red.

“That isn’t true, you know,” Megan objected. “Petey isn’t dating a guy either.”

My face couldn’t get any hotter, but Joanna pounced.

“Is that so, Gayle?” she demanded. “You’ve never had a boyfriend? Never had a date with a boy?”

I don’t know what gave me away, but just then, I did think of Leland Frick inviting me to the movies on Sunday. Megan grinned at me sideways, and I frowned back at her.

“Uhhh?” I said.

Pete's football uniform didn't seem to fit the same as it used to....

“Be honest, Pete,” Joanna commanded. “Has anyone asked you out?

I felt like everyone turned to look at me all at once. I stalled. “You mean besides Megan?” I wasn’t going to mention Leland Frick’s offer to go to the movies, which certainly wasn’t a date!

Most everyone laughed, Beverly’s tipsy cackle louder than the rest.

Smiling but not laughing, Joanna got more direct. “You know what I mean. Has any boy asked you out as Gayle?”

Put that way, I had wriggle room to deny since Lee had invited Pete, not Gayle. I decided to tough it out, so I shrugged. “Why would they? The only boy that knows about Gayle-me is Jake.” I went for the spike. “And he’s your boyfriend.”

More general laughter, and Megan gave me a hug. “Petey, Petey, Pete,” she whispered in my ear. “Did you answer the question by not answering?”

“Later,” I whispered back.

Joanna tried to ask again, but her troops had turned against her. The other cheerleaders talked over her and wouldn’t let her continue the interrogation.

“Leave her alone,” said Katalina, the tall brunette on the varsity squad. “She doesn’t owe you any answers.”

“Well, I wanna know,” Beverly put in, managing to sneer over her glass without spilling it.

“Shut up, Bev,” said Joanna, unwilling to let someone else take over leading the partiers. “You’re supposed to keep the liquor cabinet locked, not raid it yourself.”

Bev snickered and took another sip of whatever she had in the tall glass. “I bet a highball or two would loosen Miss Pete up so she would tell us the skinny.”

Enough was too much for Joanna suddenly, and she pointed at her aunt, then the stairs. “Go to your room!” she ordered.

“Oh, har-de-har-har!” said Bev, sneering again, but she retreated from the big lounge-cum-theater and made her way to the kitchen, where we could see her head above the trays of snacks in the pass-through. She still had her highball glass. She mouthed something at me, and I had to confirm with Megan what I thought she had said.

“Did she just call me a cunt?” I asked. It was a common enough insult among jocks and didn’t have the usual anatomical meaning when used there.

“Uh-huh,” Megan agreed. “She said you’re a real cunt, so…take it as a compliment?”

I snorted.

Megan grinned. “Sometimes a girl just has to take a compliment where she finds one.”

I rolled my eyes at that, and after throwing a glare Bev’s direction, joined Megan in a giggle.

“What’s so funny?” she asked, poking me with a stiff finger under my ribs.

“We are,” I admitted. “We’re in a lesbian relationship, I guess. But a real rug merchant shows up, and we give her the cold shoulder.”

I didn’t think it was that funny, but Megan howled with laughter.

“Huh?” I said. “Am I missing something?”

“Yup,” she agreed after getting her laughter under control. “The expression is rug-muncher. A rug merchant would be an Arab, or maybe a Persian.”

My face turned red, and I tried to recover my fumble. “But the rug is still a flying carpet, right?”

More giggles. “It can be,” she agreed. “It can be.”

#

Joanna reasserted her position as queen of the party. “Hey, everyone! Halloween is just three weeks away! Has everyone already decided on a costume to wear? Friday is Halloween Eve this year, so we can wear our costumes to school that day!”

“Uh-oh!” I may have said that out loud because Megan grinned at me.

Joanna was on a roll. “It’s traditional for some of the boyfriends of cheerleaders to come to school in cheerleader costumes!”

General laughter began, but I grabbed Megan and tried to pull her toward an exit.

“Pete, Petey, Pete!” she protested. “You would be so cute!”

I hoped she was kidding, but the pack of savages began to cheer the idea when Joanna brought it forward. “And we’ve got a football player right here!” She pointed directly at me, and the other girls surged around us, blocking our exit.

“Oh, wow!”

“Gayle, have you worn Megan’s uniform?”

“Argh!” I shouted, but it didn’t help.

“Pete’s too tall to wear Megan’s,” someone pointed out.

“Does anyone have a uniform she can try on?”

Joanna’s voice rose above the rest. “I do! It’s my house, and I have my old uniform from last year.”

#

My appeal to Megan to get me out of there did no good. “But Petey, Petey, Pete! I think you’ll look so cute! And it is a tradition for someone on the football squad to dress as a cheerleader!”

“But why me!?”

“Oh, come on,” Joanna put in. “Who better? You get to play on the boys’ team the rest of the time!”

“Yeah, but…!”

“Think of the embarrassment you’ll be saving someone else on the team! And if you’d been coming to school as a girl for the last four years, you’d probably be a cheerleader, now!”

“Maybe even head cheerleader,” said Megan in a dig at Joanna.

That set all the girls to laughing and poking me and pulling me toward the stairs. The poking tickled, and I found myself laughing, too.

I spotted Bev with her highball glass in the kitchen with the phone up to her ear.

“Help! Call the police.” I shouted. “You’re supposed to be the adult here! Stop this craziness!”

But she just grinned at me and waved a salute with her glass. “I’m calling for some reinforcements,” she said.

“Not likely,” Joanna sneered at her aunt. “Probably calling for another liquor delivery!”

But I didn’t have time to think of that.

The crowd of girls rushed me upstairs and into Joanna’s room, or as many of them as would fit, half a dozen plus Joanna, Megan and me. Such a giggling mob might not have existed since the French Revolution. It’s lucky for me, I guess that we weren’t headed for the guillotine, but only Joanna’s closet.

Which was actually about the same size as my bedroom back home. Half of one whole wall was just shoes!

Megan gave me a hug. By this time, I had squelched my own giggles down to a case of hiccoughs. “Relax, Petey! Have fun with this! After football season, you’ll need these girls as friends!”

“Hic,” I said. “You really think so?” I tried not to glare. Megan might have a point.

She nodded vigorously. “They already know you’re secret, and they still like you for it. What’s going to happen when everyone else finds out you’ve been a girl all along?”

That stopped my hiccoughs good. “But I haven’t been a girl all along,” I protested. “Just…just since last week!”

Megan frowned at me. “You sure?” she asked, looking a bit puzzled.

“Megan!” I wanted to scream now. “I…you…?”

But Kat was holding the cheer uniform up to show everyone. “It’s going to fit her!” She shouted.

And they did what they did best; they cheered.

Pete needs a makeover....

I didn’t really know what to expect next, but there are rules of engagement for these conscripted makeovers. This was, in fact, something that happened with almost every ice cream party at Joanna’s. Most of the other girls had gone through something like this before, and, in fact, last month was Joanna’s turn because she was now head cheerleader.

None of this info (which I got piecemeal from Megan in asides) helped banish the feeling of caterpillars with cold feet crawling through my insides. I got tickled, hugged, squeezed and even kissed, all while naked.

I’d almost forgotten about that!

“You’ve got real little titties, Petey,” Megan commented, planting a juicy kiss on one.

“Argh!” I responded, feeling the nipple crinkle up.

“Except for being tall,” said Katalina, “you’re built like a middle-schooler! Itty-bitty-titties for sure.”

They seemed enormous to me, but I didn’t reply. No one would have heard me during the cackling assault, anyway.

Joanna produced a department store bag from a drawer and ripped it open to reveal four or five pairs of lacy underwear in various colors. Of course, someone handed me a pink pair.

“Put these on, Gayle!” she squealed.

I sat down at the enormous lighted vanity and pulled on the panties—with help, of course. The briefs fit perfectly, which surprised me. Joanna is a bit bigger in the butt than me, I would have sworn. I must have looked bothered.

“You can have the whole bag of panties,” Joanna told me. “I bought them two sizes too small.”

Megan sat on the bench beside me, so at least one flank was protected from being assaulted.

She pulled my head down to hear her, “You’re being a good sport about this, Petey.”

I shrugged and managed a weak grin. “Guys actually do similar shit, but a lot rougher. And they don’t smell as good.”

That got a laugh. “A jock makeover?” she giggled.

“Usually in the shower with brown soap and stiff brushes,” I explained.

“Not you!?” Megan looked concerned.

“Uh, no,” I admitted. “I’ve always managed to avoid it.”

“They wouldn’t dare!” she exclaimed. “I mean, you play football with them, but you are a girl!”

“I…?” I didn’t know what to say to that. Had she forgotten that I wasn’t always a girl?

I looked around the room at the four or five cheerleaders having a great time pulling out Joanna’s prettiest stuff and holding it up for me to look at.

“I bet you don’t have anything like this at home, Gayle!” Katalina snorted, waving what might be a pair of baby doll pajamas at me.

“No, I don’t,” I admitted. Why would I?

Had everyone here forgotten the real me? Or maybe I should say, the original me, since everything that was happening at the moment felt all too real.

Things progressed quickly, and pretty soon, everyone was trying on things from Joanna’s big closet. Well, nearly everyone.

Joanna, Megan, Katalina, and a girl named Daphne concentrated on me. Before I knew what was happening, the top part of Joanna’s cheerleader uniform had gone over my head while Megan pulled the skirt bottom up my legs.

Joanna laughed. “Been a long time since you wore a skirt, huh, Gayle?”

I had to agree. “Forever,” I said.

She winked at me. It communicated somehow that she was in on the joke we were playing on the other girls. That Gayle had always been the real me. I think. I mean, I didn’t think that. Thinking about it made my head hurt.

“Petey, Pete, Pete!” Megan crowed, stepping back to get a better look. “You’re adorable!”

“And those legs!” Joanna added. “Gayle, have you been shaving your legs?”

Had I? I shook my head. “I’m just, I’m just not very hairy…” I tried to explain it away.

“Bitch!” said Joanna, smiling, and several other girls laughed.

“But what are we going to do for her makeup?” Daphne suddenly wailed. “Joanna is so blond, and Megan is too dark. Did anybody bring makeup that will work for Gayle?”

Had I agreed to wear makeup? I didn’t think so, but the inevitable tide of sentiment was against me. Everyone ran off to look for makeup that would suit me: a fair-skinned, blue-eyed brunette.

I got a glimpse in the full-length mirror on the back of Joanna’s closet door, and it startled me. The slightly rumpled-looking cheerleader in Friendly blue-and-gold was me? Holy shit!

“This is, uh, this is just for Halloween. You know, in a couple of weeks?” I searched Megan’s face for confirmation that we were just playing around.

She beamed at me. “Sure, Petey! If you say so!”

I groaned.

In the giggling chaos, someone had found makeup in the right shades for my coloring. Well, what they considered the right shades. My skill at broken-field running and dodging did not help me avoid it, especially after Daphne let out another of her howls.

“Her eyebrows! We’ve got to do her eyebrows!” she wailed, causing me to flinch and going a longer way to breaking my nerve than some of the snarled insults I’d heard from opposing linemen.

“Leave my eyebrows alone!” I protested.

“But you’ve got black hairs on the bridge of your nose! It’s almost a unibrow!”

“A what?”

“We’ll just clean them up a little,” Joanna put in, supplying the tweezers. “You can draw them back on when you need your game face on.”

“What? Draw them back on? You want me to wear makeup on the football field? Ow!”

Catalina had a go at my hair, too, brushing and combing it this way and that. I was sure that I heard the snipping of scissors, and Megan almost confirmed it, remarking that she’d never realized how shaggy I’d gotten.

I’d last had a haircut in August, so it was probably true, but I didn’t need some homemade hairstyle. What if they cut it in bangs?

“Great idea!” one of the girls squealed.

I was pretty sure I hadn’t said the part about bangs out loud, but she made me flinch again.

Just then, one of the younger girls from the junior squad burst in. “Guys!” she shouted. “Guys! There are guys downstairs!”

Everyone looked at her. “I mean guy-type guys. Men!”

---

Preview of Pete 42 on Patreon: Too Many Men on the Field

Cheerleaders Rule!

It put a damper on the festivities, the news that there were guys downstairs.

“Beverly!” Joanna spat. “I’m going to pull her scalp off and have it made into a wig!”

Joanna’s Aunt Beverly had been on the phone earlier. Had she called up some friends and invited them to crash the party? Probably.

I didn’t understand the family dynamic of the Linklaters, but Beverly seemed to hate everyone. What was she doing here anyway? Were Joanna’s parents so clueless that they had actually left Beverly as the responsible adult at a teen party?

“She’s got the key to the liquor cabinet,” Megan remarked. We’d all seen Bev sipping something that might have been a cocktail.

The sudden sound of a crash downstairs caused everyone to jump. I looked around. Half of the girls in the room were still naked, or mostly so. In fact, I was the only one who was completely dressed, even if I was wearing a cheerleader outfit.

“Find something to put on!” I hissed at them. “I’ll go downstairs and find out what’s happening.” They scrambled around like startled birds, some of them grabbing at things to wear.

“Petey-pete-pete!” Megan called to me as I started toward the door. “They’ll see what you’re wearing!”

I shrugged. “If they’re Bev’s friends, they probably don’t know me.” And even people who do know me might not recognize me in a skirt with a blouse tight enough to show I had tits. I ran my hands through my hair nervously before I reached the head of the stairs.

“Be careful, Pete!” someone called to me.

Someone else commented. “Better call her Gayle when she’s dressed like that. Or is the secret blown up for good?”

Yeah. Damn.

Peals of rumbly laughter rolled up the stairs, and a male voice called out. “Catch her! Don’t let her get away!”

I ran down the stairs, three steps at a stride, almost tripping. I grabbed the banister to make the turn and to keep from falling. Behind me, someone called, “Pete! Gayle! Pete!”

I made another turn at the arch into the big dining room. Two guys were there, manhandling two girls who were squealing as they were pushed, stumbling and flailing, from one man’s grasp to another.

“Let her go!” I screamed. I saw Bev sitting in the breakfast alcove with another man who was pouring from a large bottle with a green label into the glass Bev held. She waved it at me, spilling whatever was being poured.

The man looked up and right at me. “Cheerleader,” he commented. “Is that your sister?”

I didn’t hear Bev’s reply as the two men in the dining room let their nearly naked prey escape when they turned toward me. “You guys get out of here!” I ordered the men, but my voice seemed shrill and shaky.

“You guys get out of here!” One of them mocked me in a falsetto.

“I think she’s volunteering for our little game of keepaway,” the other suggested. They started in my direction, their arms held wide like inexperienced middle linebackers.

“Joanna’s upstairs calling the police,” I warned the men as they advanced.

“No, I’m not.”

Joanna’s voice came from behind me, and I started to turn when I realized the two assholes were going to rush me. I did the only thing I knew how to do.

I played offense.

A quick glance told me Joanna had found time to throw a shortie nightgown over her nudity, making her twice as naked. “You hit’em high, I’ll hit’em low, Petey,” she yelled. I felt sure she had grabbed their attention.

One of the few pieces of wisdom about fighting I got from my Dad was that if you say anything in a fight, make it a lie, so I did the opposite of what she suggested. I ducked under the first guy’s arms and hit the second guy hip-high, being sure to drive my helmet into his crotch.

Well, I wasn’t wearing a helmet, but the meaning is clear.

Offense moves first--you don’t wait on the defenders. I pivoted, rolling away from my first target and tripping him on the way down. In the kitchen, Aunt Bev was in the middle of a scream when I hit her last friend in the world around the middle, this time, my skull in his solar plexus.

The damn skirt I was wearing had flipped up on my first hit but hadn’t caused a problem, so I followed my victim down, landing with a knee to his chest. “Shut your face, Bev!” I screamed.

Joanna hadn’t been waiting, either. She’d vaulted over the banister, long legs flashing, and I looked back in time to see her make a one-point landing with her other foot in the would-be voyeur’s face.

Three men down on the play. I rolled off number three in one motion and stood over him with a bare foot on a wrist. “Easy does it, Lance-a-little, if you don’t want a broken arm,” I warned.

True to form, Bev sneered at him. “I thought you guys played football in college. You just got taken down by a pair of high school cheerleaders!”

She reminded me of what I was wearing, and I grinned at the man on the floor. “I didn’t even get to use my pom-poms!” I said, grinding his wrist against the floor a bit.

“I say we hold them for the cops,” Joanna said loudly, causing the two nearest the door to make a break for it. She let them get past but delivered a kick in the ass to the slower one.

“Please,” whimpered the man on the kitchen floor as I stepped away from him. “I’ll go if you let me. We only came because Bev said there would be free beer. And…and, ice cream.”

Beer and ice cream didn’t sound that good to me, but Joanna cackled. “You only get the ice cream if you’re bleeding! You wanna bleed a little for some Rocky Road?”

“You can go if you take her with you,” I told him, gesturing toward Bev.

Jo snarled at her aunt to encourage her to go along. We had an audience gathered on the stairs, which Megan led in a cheer. “Petey, Pete, Pete!”

I rolled my eyes and pointed at Joanna. Someone added, “Cheerleaders rule!” Everyone laughed as Bev and her escort scurried out the front door, with Bev protesting, “My smokes, lemme get my cigarettes.” The rest of the girls scampered down the stairs or out of rooms where they had been hiding.

We celebrated briefly by raiding the freezer for more ice cream and recapping what had happened, making it sound bigger and more dramatic than it actually was.

Then Megan wrapped me in a hug, and I kissed her on her nose. She pushed me away, putting a hand to my face. “What happened to your eye, Pete? You’ve got a mouse.”

“Wow, yeah,” one of the other girls commented. “It’s turning into a real shiner!”

“One of them must have got you with an elbow or something,” said Jo.

I moved to get a look in the mirror over the dining room buffet. My left eye was swelling and changing colors, with a bit of a scratch on the cheekbone. “Oh, no!” I moaned. “What am I going to tell Lee?”

Joanna was quick. “Lee? Leland Frick? Why should you tell him anything?”

I don’t know why I confessed, but it was out of my mouth before I could think. “We kind of have a date tomorrow night. Just for the movies,” I added.

Too late to take it back, I saw Jo and Megan’s mouths fly open.

Kat whistled. “You go, girl,” she said.

---

Pete's Vagina 43.1 Highlight Reel available on Patreon

Ice cream can be used for many things!

The idea of me having a date with Leland Frick, the team photographer, almost caused a riot. By this time, there seemed to be sixteen girls —including me, damnit!— left at the party, and all of them had one thing to discuss: my supposed date.

At the top of their lungs — and cheerleaders live to be loud. All of them —again, including me— had something to say about it.

“Well, what was I supposed to do? He was all upset about the highlight reel he shot showing me taking down #17 of the Dogs, and …”

“And he wanted to make it up to you?” Jo supplied. “Relationship judo. You’re a nice person, and he used it against you.”

Megan was leading some of the other girls in an adlib cheer: “Pete! Pete! Petey’s got a date!”

“Wait, wait!” I almost shrieked it over the noise. “Lee is a nice person, too!”

“Oh, you’re defending your boyfriend?” asked Joanna with a grin. Talk about relationship judo!

Kat led another chorus of the combined cheering squads. “She’s gunna get Fricked! Just you wait and see! Number seventeen has a date with Lee!”

I felt my face twisting up. Was I going to cry? “Damnit!” I screamed to forestall any tears. “It’s not a date-date! Lee just wants a chance to apologize!”

“Oh, I bet he does!” Joanna cackled.

“Whatcha gonna go see? That new Halloween movie with the creepy alien monsters?” Darcy from the JV squad asked.

That got several squeals of laughter. “If you get scared, Lee will be there to hold you!”

I didn’t know which girl made that suggestion, but I determined that I would find out and tie knots in her baton. Well, she probably didn’t have a baton…. Drum majorettes had batons, cheerleaders had pom-poms, and you can’t tie a knot in those, ‘cause they already have a knot to make all the streamers stay together. So… I’d untie them then.

That didn’t make sense, even to me, and I felt my eyes burn and my lips twist again. “You guys!” I shrieked. “You’re just being mean!” Panic must feel like this.

And suddenly, I was in the middle of a huddle of girls being hugged and patted and even kissed, first by Megan, then by Joanna and more.

“Don’t be scared,” Megan said in my ear. “We’re here for you. And you and Jo just kicked ass on three grown men. Leland is only a film nerd with a limp!”

“He,” I stammered. “He… it’s his leg… he wears that shoe….”

She pushed me away to look into my face. “You like him, don’t you? Do you like Leland Frick, Petey?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know, Megan.” My face was wet, and my nose was running. “Not the way I like y-you?”

Someone handed me a tissue, and I used it.

“It’s different because he’s a boy,” Megan suggested.

I nodded, the tissue already as damp and miserable as me.

“What are you going to wear on your date, Gayle?” Darcy asked.

I lost it and started collecting tissues like a politician shaking hands.

“Ice cream,” someone yelped. “She needs ice cream! Stat!”

Jo handed me an icy pint carton. “Hold it to the back of your neck,” she ordered.

I did so, and the shock stopped me from crying, at least.

---

Read Pete 43.2 on Patreon!

“Pete, Petey, Pete,” she whispered. “What we have, who we are, what we do in this world...

Joanna started chasing everyone out, telling them, “I want to lock all the doors and bar the windows against Bev coming back with her little friends.” The cops put in an appearance, but Mr. Linklater, being a mover and shaker in the community, they were willing to take Joanna’s recommendation that she come down on Monday and make a statement.

When the cops had gone, everyone else said goodbyes and left, too. The party had ended, and with some surprise, we noticed that it was nearly midnight.

I found a phone and used it to tell my folks that I’d be staying at Chez Linklater, which I had done before. Most recently, on the night this had all started.

“Is Megan with you?” Mom wanted to know.

“Yeah,” I said. “She’s on another phone talking to her mother.”

Mom laughed at that. “Bring her by for breakfast tomorrow, and she can go to church with us?”

“She’s Catholic, Mom,” I protested. “But I’ll suggest it to her.”

“We don’t have to tell anyone,” Mom answered, and I laughed. Friendly is a hotbed of Latter Day Saints (Mormons), but our church was mainline Protestant. The line about not telling anyone was a family joke.

*

Megan and I ended up in one of the bedrooms upstairs.

It was cold, and we were both wearing shortie pajamas loaned to us by Joanna. Mine were gold and green, and Megan’s, powder blue with white trim. After we climbed into bed, we got naked under the covers again, tossing the PJs onto the floor.

“Can we just hold each other?” I asked, crawling across the queen-size bed.

“Sure,” Megan agreed and glommed onto me with arms that were pretty much as strong as my own.

I had to laugh, hugging her back. We kissed and cuddled for several minutes, something like our behavior in bed on previous occasions, but perhaps missing an element. This felt more like affection and less like passion, and somehow that was okay.

“You’re not mad?” I asked while nibbling on an ear lobe.

She giggled against my neck. “About what?”

“Uh?” I tried to articulate, but she had seized my shoulder in her teeth and pretended to gnaw on my clavicle. It felt silly and sweet. “Maybe I forget?” I ventured.

“Forget what?” she murmured. Then pulled back a little to peer at me through her messy curls.

“Exactly,” I said, and we both laughed, face to face, almost eyeball to eyeball, with our chests, and breasts, pressed against each other.

“My-uh-my-uh, date?” I almost gasped as she changed focus, one hand on a nipple and the other burrowing under me, between my thighs.

“With Lee?’ she whispered.

“Um, yeah?” I grunted.

We didn’t say anything for a while, both concentrating on not thinking. Her skin felt slippery as I lowered my mouth to her breast while her fingers found something to play with—down there.

After a bit, we both gasped, almost simultaneously. It felt good, and we lay in each other’s arms together for several minutes.

“Uh,” I said to her.

“Uh?” she replied.

“About..?”

“Oh,” she murmured. “Have fun,” she added with a giggle.

“With Lee?” I had to know if she meant that.

“Pete, Petey, Pete,” she whispered. “What we have, who we are, what we do in this world, was never meant to be forever.”

I sighed. “I will love you always,” I promised.

I felt her nod against my back. “And I will you,” she said softly. “Just probably not like this again.”

I cried while she held me. Then we kissed again and fell asleep, still cuddled together.

---

Read the next chapter on Patreon!

“Dammit,” I said again to the girl in the mirror.

I woke up alone in the big bed, still naked under the covers. The air had some of that mid-October nip; there must have been a window open somewhere. I called out, “Megan?” but no one answered.

My voice sounded thin and high. I got out of bed and pulled on just the PJ bottoms I found on the floor. A door led to a bathroom, and I did my business.

I established that I still had a tampon inside me, and from what the other girls told me, it was time to change it. The cabinet above the sink had a box of the things, so I took care of that, discarding the bloody one in the little trashcan and pulling the PJ bottoms back up.

I paused to look at the girl in the mirror, her face still puffy from sleep and the bruised eye beginning to turn colors. The little makeover last night seemed to have involved thinning my eyebrows and cutting my hair in bangs.

“Dammit,” I muttered. Would I end up having to get a GI haircut to look like Pete again? Worry about it later. I washed my face in warm water, then cold, the way Megan taught me, and I patted my cheeks dry.

But had something else happened to me? Something physical? I felt my breasts. Did they seem a bit larger, softer? Maybe.

I didn’t feel like Pete. I felt like a girl named Gayle. A girl who had a date this evening with a boy named Lee.

“Dammit,” I said again to the girl in the mirror.

*

I put on the pajama top and went looking for my other clothes. How could I be Pete in a girly set of PJs? And where was Megan?

I heard someone downstairs and made my way there. Outside, one of the fast-moving storms we get in the fall sent rain against the windows, and the house rattled to a thunder that seemed almost too close.

I found Joanna in the kitchen sipping hot tea from a huge mug. I glared at her on general principles, but she smiled back.

“You just missed Megan; her brother came to pick her up,” she informed me.

“Why didn’t… She didn’t…,” I stammered, stunned. I looked toward the door, but it was already too late. “I…. I wanted to say goodbye,” I managed weakly.

Joanna nodded. “She said you guys said goodbye last night.”

I pulled a chair out and slumped into it, putting my elbows on the table to hold my head up.

Joanna looked at me with a critical eye. “That’s a helluva shiner.”

I didn’t even nod.

“You want some tea?” she asked.

I meant to say no, but nothing came out, and she started preparing the tea. “It’s English Breakfast,” she said. “Twice the caffeine and an assload of spices.”

She messed my hair as she bustled around, heating water and getting out another big mug.

“Don’t,” I warned her. “You guys cut my hair in bangs!” I complained.

“Not really,” she explained. “Part it in the middle and comb forward, voila, bangs. But part it on the side and comb back, and you’ll still look like Pete.”

“Ppff!” I said doubtfully.

“I’ll show you later,” she promised. “We did do a little pruning on those hedges you call eyebrows.”

Now I wanted a mirror again to see the damage, but I didn’t move.

She put the mug down in front of me, along with a pastry that smelled like it had just come out of the oven.

“Where are my clothes?” I mumbled around a mouthful of hot apple filling.

“Eat,” she chastised me. “No one’s expecting you to be anywhere for hours. Have some tea.”

The tea and pastry did go down well, I hadn’t had anything to eat since the last bite of ice cream the night before. We sat and sipped tea together like we were friends or something.

At one point, Joanna pushed a bottle of Midol toward me. I knew what that was for but ignored it. The mild cramping I had responded well to the hot tea.

“Why aren’t you always this nice?” I asked, but she just laughed.

“What are you planning to wear when you go out with Lee,” she asked.

I shrugged. “Clothes?”

She rolled her eyes. “Have you no idea at all?”

I made a face at her, but that caused my eye to hurt from the bruise. “It’s just Lee,” I said. “It’s not really a date.”

“Wake up, Petey-Gayle!” she admonished. “This is the rest of your life beginning.”

I frowned at her a bit gingerly. I used a finger to pick up sugar flakes on the plate and licked them off. The sweetness tasted like a memory.

“Ooo, sexy,” she cooed. “Smile like that at Lee, and he’ll definitely ask you out again.”

“Oh, knock it off.” I tried to scowl at her, but I was still smiling.

“No,” she said. “You’re here, you’ve nowhere else to be, and I have closets full of clothes — some of which would look cute as hell on you.”

“I’m not ready for that,” I protested.

She nodded. “But here’s your chance to get in a little practice. We’ve got hours for you to try on things, and more lessons on how to cover up that shiner.”

She continued. “We’ve got your costume for Halloween sorted, but you realize Homecoming is only a month away. What are you going to wear then?”

“A football uniform?” I meant to be defiant, but it sounded…pouty…

“You can’t hide forever Petey-Gayle,” she warned me. “Jake is a shoo-in for Homecoming King, and I’ll probably be Queen. But there’s room on the podium for Princess Gayle.”

I rubbed my forehead. Why did I have an image of Lee in a tux in my mind? Maybe I should have taken that Midol.

---

Chapter 44.2 on Patreon

“It's pink!" I protested.

I glared at the outfits Joanna had left on the bed for me to try on. Some of them, like the jeans I was wearing, were actually boy’s clothes — but somehow, they fit in a way that emphasized my shape.

How could I go back to being Pete when I looked so much like Gayle?

Joanna came in the door with another armful of clothes. “Topless,” she observed. “It’s daring, but I think your days of playing skins are over.”

“Ha, ha,” I responded. “Everything I try on makes me look like a girl!”

“No shit, Sherlock.” She grinned, more like the evil Joanna that I was used to rather than the helpful friend she seemed to be becoming.

I glared at her on general principles. “None of the bras you’ve got fit me without some padding, and I don’t…I’m not going to….”

“Yeah, yeah,” she dismissed my blathering. “The problem is you’ve got a bigger ribcage than me. So you need a bigger band size and a smaller cup. But you’re pretty much a full B now, so you do need some support.” She pulled something out of the pile of clothes she carried. “I found a stretchy one-size bra I must have bought when I left my brain at home one day. Try it.”

“It’s pink!” I protested.

“Rose, actually, but you’re not going to show Lee your bra, are you?” She flashed that grin again.

“How do I put it on? There are no snaps.”

“Pull it on like a t-shirt,” she instructed.

I tried that. It fit well enough — not tight, but firmly.

“That ought to prevent any untoward jiggling,” she noted.

I bounced on my heels experimentally, and she giggled.

“What?” I asked.

She shook her head. “Never mind.”

“That’s a funny word,” I observed, searching through her assortment of tops. Most of them plainly girls’ clothes. I sighed.

“What’s a funny word? Jiggling?”

“No. ‘Untoward?’ It sounds like it means away from, but away from what?”

“I dunno?” She admitted. “Away from your bottom?”

I would have frowned at her, but my face still hurt from the elbow I had collected in last night’s scrimmage. “I hope Lee won’t be looking at my ass,” I protested.

“He’d be a fool not to,” she said.

“What?” I began but stopped when I recalled all the shots Lee had taken of me running downfield.

“You’re blushing,” Joanna observed. “Lee’s already noticed your round little bottom, hasn’t he?”

I didn’t answer, saying instead, “I need a top that will be thick enough not to show any straps.”

“Try this,” she suggested. “It’s like a t-shirt made of sweater material. Off-white, so it’ll go good with denim.”

* * *

Joanna offered her expensive rancher’s coat of leather and lamb’s wool, but I settled on my own denim jacket as better completing my look. I stared at my reflection a bit sourly, though. Re-combing my hair hadn’t completely solved the hairstyle problem.

“I still look like a girl,” I complained.

Joanna shrugged. “It’s about as butch as it gets without going cartoony. Face it, Petey-Gayle, you’re a very cute girl, and it’s hard to hide that.”

“My hair,” I began, but she cut me off.

“We could shave your head like that girl who’s going to be in the Star Trek movie,” she suggested.

I hadn’t heard of this, so she had to show me a picture in one of her movie magazines: a lovely woman with her head shaved bald who didn’t look at all like a guy. “I’m not that pretty,” I protested.

“Well, she doesn’t have a black eye,” Joanna conceded. “But pretty much, you’ve got classic good features, smooth skin, beautiful eyes. Well, one at least.”

I blinked at my reflection. “I don’t look much like a football player,” I said.

This struck Joanna as funny, and she laughed. “You look exactly like the girl who plays football because you’re the only one, and you look like you!”

“Ow,” I said after trying to roll my eyes. I put a hand to my face. “Maybe an eyepatch?”

Joanna laughed again. “You’re not the first girl who’s ever had to cover up a shiner to go on a date.”

Why would other girls have black eyes? Girls didn’t usually get in fights. I shook my head at that. “It’s not really a date,” I began.

She shut me down. “He’s buying the movie tickets. It’s a date.”

Logic from a cheerleader, but I didn’t try to roll my eyes again.

She pointed at the little bench in front of the room’s vanity. “Sit there so you’ll be able to see what I’m doing. You’ll probably have to do it yourself tomorrow for school.”

“Where? I don’t have any makeup at home or place to put it on!”

She pointed again. “Sit!”

I grunted rebelliously but sat and let her start applying makeup.

---

Pete -45- Wing Formation on Patreon

“I’ve decided to avoid weddings for the next few years.”

“You never did try on any of the dresses I put out for you,” Joanna accused as she worked on covering up my shiner, indicating the pile of clothes still spread across the bed behind us.

I sighed. “I duwanna.” I could see them in the mirror, a threatening assembly of girliness.

That got a snort from her. “You wore a skirt last night,” she pointed out. “In fact, you were wearing a dress when you got this black eye.”

“Ow,” I said.

“Sorry,” she apologized. “I forgot it must still be tender.”

“Yeah, well….” I tried to keep my face still, but my mouth wanted to twist up. I realized that I was very near to crying—again. “Dammit.” Specifically, damn period.

“You need any painkillers?” she asked.

I remembered not to shake my head, grunting a “no” instead.

“There’s one I really want to see you in — the blue-and-white one with the lace bodice.” She pointed vaguely with a tool that looked for all the world like a small kitchen sponge stained with beige grease.

“Bodice?” I asked.

“Chest, dummy,” she supplied.

“The one that looked like something you would wear to a wedding?”

“Exactly. I wore it to my cousin’s wedding in Oklahoma last year.”

“Oh,” I said. “Oklahoma.” For some reason, we both laughed.

“It would look so dramatic on you with your coloring. I sort of looked wilted in it.”

“So you want me to model it for you? I didn’t think you were that vindictive, Joanna.”

“Hah!” she said, switching from the sponge to using tiny brushes. “No, really, you’d look great.”

“I don’t think so,” I protested. “I’ve decided to avoid weddings for the next few years.”

“Afraid you might cry?”

“No. Afraid one of them might be mine.”

Joanna cackled. “As long as you’re not marrying Jake, I’m up for being one of your bridesmaids.”

“You’d look terrific in mint green,” I countered.

Joanna had to stop to cackle again.

I found myself grinning until she came back with, “Who says you’re not a girl, Petey-Gayle?”

“Hey!”

She snickered. “Don’t pout. It makes you twice as cute.”

I glared at Joanna’s reflection in the mirror, then noticed that I didn’t seem to have a shiner anymore. “Hey, wow,” I said, touching my cheek. “I guess you do know how to do this.”

“Toldja,” she said with a gesture like a stage magician revealing a surprise bouquet. “Now you’re going to try on that wedding dress for me.”

“Wedding dress?” I boggled a moment. “Don’t call it that,” I said, slightly horrified.

Then we had a bit of a struggle as Joanna pretended to be trying to undress me again. “Do this for me, Petey. I want to see just how much of a threat to me you are,” she mocked while poking me in the ribs.

“Stoppit! Stoppit!” I protested, but she was definitely reminding me that she was several inches taller and just as much of an athlete as I was. I might be stronger, though certainly not as much as before. “Okay, okay,” I finally gasped.

She instantly stopped tickling me, but by then, she had me out of my jacket and shirt, and I was sitting there wearing only my bra above the waist. The image in the mirror disturbed me.

“Get your jeans off, too,” she ordered while digging through the pile of clothes on the bed.

“I still don’t want to do this,” I grumbled.

“Tough,” she said. “I don’t have to put you in a headlock, do I?”

Okay, that was kind of funny, especially with the face she was making. I failed to resist a giggle.

She found the dress and tossed it at me.

“How do I put it on?” I asked.

She rolled her eyes. “Pull it over your head and down to your hips,” she directed.

“I’m wearing makeup now. I don’t want to get it on this lace,” I stalled.

“It’s got a boatneck,” she said.

“Boat neck?”

“Just be careful,” she advised.

I put my hand to my neck. I hadn’t thought of it before, but it definitely seemed more slender than a month ago.

Something else occurred to me, and I failed to suppress another giggle. “You know who has a real boat neck?” I asked. “Coach Wilson.” I put my head into the dress, carefully holding it away from my made-up eye.

“Yeah, yeah,” she agreed, helping me by yanking the dress past my waist to where the skirt fell around my thighs.

I stared at my reflection while Joanna made adjustments to how the garment draped around my shape. The lace made my bust look fuller, and the cut of the whole thing made my waist appear thinner, my hips wider.

“Yikes,” I said quietly.

Just then, the phone rang.

---

Pete 45.2 on Patreon

“You haven’t told anyone in your family what happened to you?”

“You going to answer that?” I asked Joanna on the phone’s third ring.

She shrugged but reached for the instrument. “Hey,” she said into the mouthpiece.

“Who’s it?” I asked but she shushed me.

“Oh, hey, Jordan,” Joanna grinned, nodding at me.

Jordan? My sister? Why would she be calling? Wait, wait, wait…. Jordie was friends with several girls on the freshman cheer squad. Madrigal! Katalina’s little sister had been at the party last night!

“Why would you think Pete would be here?” I heard Joanna asking.

Had Maddie told Jordan she had seen me at the ice cream party?

“Yeah, no, yeah, no. Uh huh,” Jo was saying. “Pete brought Megan to the party and they spent the night in a guest room. Uh, huh, yeah! Probably. Oh, yeah, Pete kicked ass on some gate crashers, so we let him stay.” She laughed, winking at me.

Was she running a bluff on Jordan? My head buzzed with confusion and anxiety.

“Nope,” said Jo. “I haven’t seen him this morning.” Grinning she pointed at what I was wearing. The bridesmaid dress! God! Why had I let Joanna talk me into dressing up?

I covered my face with my palms and put my thumbs in my ears. I didn’t want to hear any more of the conversation. I already felt like shrieking or grabbing the phone away from Jo.

After a bit, I realized Joanna must have hung up and took my hands down.

She was looking at me, her expression amused. “You haven’t told anyone in your family what happened to you?”

I opened my mouth then closed it again, settling for just shaking my head.

Jo rolled her eyes. “Jordan says your boyfriend called about your date this afternoon.”

“I— what? — you? — she?” I babbled. “Lee called my house!?! She said Lee Frick, not….”

“No, she didn’t call him your boyfriend,” she laughed. “I did that. But not to her.”

I scowled at her. “You’re having too much fun!” I accused.

She cackled at that. “Don’t pout, Petey-Gayle. You’re way too cute when you do and it’s wasted on me. Wait till Lee hogs the popcorn bucket.” She cackled again. “Oh, hey!” She got up and opened a cabinet and took something out of a bowl before handing it to me. “Free upgrade coupon for two large drinks and a large popcorn when you buy mediums!”

I blinked, taking the slips of paper. Joanna’s dad owned the theaters in town and she had an endless supply of the coupons, which she freely distributed since you had to buy tickets and the medium stuff to get the upgrade. “Uh, thanks,” I muttered, then frowned as I realized I had no pockets to stuff them in.

“If you want to wear that dress to the show I’ll grab you the matching purse,” Jo offered.

“Way too much fun,” I accused again.

“I’d love to be there when Lee sees you in it,” she added.

I just glared at her.

She didn’t mind but went back to what she had heard on the phone. “Jordan said Lee will pick you up at three in his van so you don’t both have to look for parking.”

I nodded but had nothing to say to that.

“The matinee will give you two time for a drive up to Lookaway Point afterwards,” she added.

I flipped her off for that and she snickered.

“That van of his has a big back seat and no one will see….”

“Knock it off, Jo,” I said, meaning to sound tough but it didn’t come out right.

She reached across the table and took my hand and I grasped hers back. We sat there for a moment and it sank in that Jo was my friend now. Not just Jake’s girlfriend, but something different, something like what Jake and I used to have with a lot of friendly teasing.

I squeezed her hand and she squeezed back then I let go to wipe something off my cheek.

“What are you going to wear on your date?” she asked.

“My clothes?” I said. “Not a dress,” I added firmly.

She looked seriously at me. “Will your boy jeans still fit your curves?” She made a motion. “Your round little butt is even rounder than before and not so little now.”

I stared at her. “My clothes fit last night!”

“We’d better check if they still do,” she mused then cackled again when she looked at me. She patted my hand. “Relax. We’ve got hours, we can go shopping to find something that fits!”

I scowled, or tried to, remembering that my face still hurt.

She pointed at me. “Your face, Petey-Gayle!”

“You’re still enjoying this too much, Jo,” I complained.

“Uh huh,” she agreed. “I am! As long as you’re not trying to date Jake!”

Still frowning, I decided I’d have to figure some way to get back at her.

---

Wanna see Pete in the wedding dress? Click to read the next half chapter on Patreon. :)

“Are these supposed to be something I could wear?”

I tried to pull my jeans up again. How could they not fit when I had worn them just last night? “Jo!” I called out, my voice breaking. If I couldn’t get this pair of jeans up over my hips, would none of my clothes fit anymore? “Jo!” I called again.

“I’m on the way,” she called back.

Damn this house for being so big, I couldn’t tell where she was.

“I’m upstairs in my room,” she supplied, though I hadn’t asked out loud. Had I?

I was in the downstairs den/bedroom that Megan and I had used last night, staring horrified in the mirror at the girl who couldn’t pull her jeans up over her fat ass.

I’d taken off the dress, but I still had only the bra on above my waist. The image seemed to dislocate something in my brain. I was one cruel word away from bursting into tears, so why did I think I wanted Joanna to come rescue me?

“Keep it together, Pete,” I told myself. “You’ve got six more weeks of League football to play, then the State Tournament!” The girl in the mirror seemed to consider this doubtful.

I heard Joanna coming down the stairs but refrained from going to meet her.

“Does anything fit, Petey-Gayle?” she asked before opening the door and stopping when she saw me. “Guess not!” She had a laundry basket under one arm and set it on the bed. “Hmm… well, the bra fits.”

“Wuttamigunnado?” I asked, trying to keep my voice even.

“First of all, give up on those jeans and get out of them. Your bubble-butt is not gonna fit.” She waved a hand toward the laundry basket. “I’ve got some stuff that might work.”

I glared at her. “This is your fault,” I complained. “Making me eat all that ice cream last night.” I wasn’t serious about that, but I needed to blame someone.

She laughed. “Honey, you’re probably bloated.” She poked me in the side, just under my bra.

“Bloated? Oh, fuck!” I squeaked. “Is this going to happen every month?”

“More or less,” she agreed. “When it doesn’t happen….”

“Don’t,” I warned her. “Don’t even say it.”

She cackled mildly, laying items of clothing across the bed.

I shook off the cringey possibility that Jo had implied, and frowned at what she had laid out. “Are these supposed to be something I could wear?” I scoffed.

“I think some of them might fit. And even if you hadn’t vetoed going shopping, you’d need to wear something to do that.”

I pointed at a pair of pants that were obviously Joanna’s. “No way am I wearing lilac jeans!”

“Three weeks ago, I’m sure you would have called them either gray or purple,“ she laughed. “At least you can try them on… and be glad I didn’t offer you my fuchsia pair.”

I knew what fuchsia was, and that appalled me.

Then Joanna piled it on. “Even though,” she commented, “you’d look dahling in the color.”

“I liked you better when we hated each other,” I retorted.

---

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“I’m not going to wear nail polish!”

“How many times do I have to say no?” I protested. “I’m not going to wear nail polish!”

“See, you’re thinking some sort of color,” Joanna countered. “I’m talking a matte clear coat. No one will know you’re wearing it!”

“I’ll know! And I’ve said ‘nothing doing’ three times now!” I shook my fist at her. “I don’t want to have to pop ya one, Jo!”

I must not have looked very threatening because she giggled. “You’re so cute when you’re pissed off, Petey-Gayle,” she said, just to feed my annoyance. “I guess one black eye between us is enough for a Sunday morning.”

I snorted, then looked over my shoulder at the hallway mirror one more time. The denim coat Jo had loaned me was just long enough to conceal the fact that the borrowed slacks I wore had fake back pockets: button flaps, and no real pocket under them. From the front, they looked almost like standard Levi’s, but the rear view had the girly detail I could learn to hate.

“I can’t believe this is the only pair of pants in the house that fits,” I complained.

Joanna grinned an evil grin. “You could always wear the stretchy lilac ones,” she jibed. “Lycra is the wonder fabric.”

My face still hurt too much to glare at her again, but I did anyway.

She handed me my wallet and keys. “You left these in the bathroom.”

I groaned. “Where am I going to keep them?” I said, trying not to sound whiney. “And don’t say you have a purse I can borrow!”

Still grinning, she made a practical suggestion instead. “The coat pockets are big enough to hold your stuff.”

I nodded, a bit relieved to discover the reality of the pockets in the coat. I stowed things away without too much difficulty.

My lip wanted to tremble, but I faced the mirror one more time. “Joanna,” I sighed. “Do I look okay?”

She nodded. “You look fine, Petey. Very butch. Macho even.” She held her elbow at a right angle and pretended to make a muscle.

I rolled my eyes and headed out the front door. Joanna followed me for a bit. “Lee isn’t picking you up till three,” she called out. “Where are you going to hang out?”

I shrugged. I would probably go home and try to hide in my room. Maybe I could call Lee and cancel this not-a-date. I walked the half-block to where I had parked the car last night, climbed into my baby blue Capri and started it up, still trying not to think about where I really wanted to go.

I needed Megan or Jake. Joanna being a friend now wasn’t real in the same way. She liked needling me too much, and everything was a joke to her. I guess a leopard can’t change its stripes overnight, and Jo was still a spoiled rich kid, even if she wasn’t as much of a bitch as I had thought before.

I felt my lower lip threatening to tremble as I steered the car out to the highway. Jake was closer. Megan lived at the other end of town–and besides, we’d said a firm-sounding goodbye last night.

I didn’t think I’d cry in front of Jake.

I hoped I wouldn’t cry… but I couldn’t be sure.

---

Read ahead on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/petes-vagina-47-99062365

“But oh, don’t you look nice?”

As I pulled up on the dirt driveway at Jake’s house, I could not ignore the fact that his big red pickup truck was missing. I sat a moment, considering whether he might be at home despite his wheels not being there.

He couldn’t be at Joanna’s. I’d just come from there. None of the Fremonts were usual churchgoers, so maybe the family had gone out to breakfast? I decided I would have to find out if anyone was home. I still felt a knot inside that almost made it hard to breathe as I trudged up to the kitchen door.

I knocked once and opened the door to find Jake’s mom washing dishes at the sink.

“Pete,” she said, glancing at me before trying to rub her nose with her elbow. “Dish soap always makes me want to sneeze,” she offered as explanation.

“Um,” I said.

“Jake’s not here,” she added. “But oh, don’t you look nice.”

I blinked at that, deciding it was wiser not to reply to the sentiment. “I didn’t see his truck,” I mentioned instead.

“He went over to Dave’s since Joanna was having her party. I think they’re going to watch football.”

I blinked again. “Denver…” I began, then I remembered. The new Mile High Network would be carrying any game not on a national broadcast if it sold out locally. And the Broncos were always sold out. “Oh, yeah,” I ended lamely.

“Fancy you forgetting a football game,” Sylvia teased, showing the dimples that matched Jake’s.

I made a noise that sounded too much like a squeak. I didn’t want to go over to Dave’s. His family had a big projection TV, and probably half the football team would be there, sprawled out on the floor. No.

“Can I borrow your phone?” I asked.

“Of course. This one here?” she pointed her chin at the wall-mounted kitchen phone. “Or the one in the living room? Alvin is going to watch the game here, so he’s probably in there sleeping through the pre-game show.”

“I’m not asleep,” Jake’s dad protested from the other room. “C’mon in, Pete,” he called out. “You can help me make fun of this dumbass sports common-tater. He’s really just an ornery spud like the rest of the Mile High vegetables.”

I got halfway to the living room before realizing that I didn’t want to use a phone with anyone listening. I made some sort of lame excuses to the Fremonts and got out of there. My skin felt prickly, my— my breasts ached, and my stomach lurched around inside me, banging against my other organs.

I drove downtown looking for a payphone, finally going inside at Thrifty Drugs to use the one beside the tube-tester station. No one was playing with the arcane device that could predict how much you would have to spend to repair your grandmother’s radio, so I put a dime in and called Dave’s number with the intention of asking Jake to meet me somewhere.

I hung up before anyone could answer.

The only thing left to do was to go home.

I don’t really remember driving over to Coach Wilson’s house, but I sat parked in front of his place for several minutes before realizing how many cars and pickups were parked around it. Of course, Coach and his buddies would be watching the game. Another car arrived while I sat there.

I started Baby Blue up and drove away before anyone saw me.

The only thing left to do was to go home.

#

I stopped on the bare patch of lawn north of the house, avoiding parking under the trees because pines are not kind to car finishes.

I went through the back gate where Wug said hello with a low-pitched rumble. I gave his wooly head a thorough scritch, and he wagged his other end in appreciation. Sheepdogs of his breed usually have docked tails, and Wug made up the difference in length with energy. He brought me one of his rubber toys, a thing like a bird carcass, and I threw it a few times for him.

He followed me around to the patio, where I sat on the old wooden bench for a bit while he settled down to gnaw on the mutant chicken. I encouraged him with fake growls and murmurs of, “What a good boy! Kill the evil chicken!”

Wug did his usual good job while I slipped through the back door into the laundry room, then the short hallway. The door to my bedroom stood open. Curious, I approached it carefully and peeked inside.

Jordan looked up from where she bent over my chest of drawers. “You never put your laundry away, Petey,” she commented mildly.

I made a noise. I didn’t like her being in my room, but it was true that I seldom remembered to put things away since the laundry basket full of clean underwear would be just across the hall if I needed something.

Jordan looked up at me sideways. “Something happened?” she asked.

I didn’t know what to tell her, moving my head in a circle that was neither yes nor no.

She put the rest of the laundry on the stool and stood up. “Anything you want to talk about?”

The noise I made this time might have been a hiccough – but wasn’t. I just stared at her until she took my hand and led me toward the bed. We sat side by side, faces almost on the same level. Jordan is tall, but I’m several inches taller, even sitting down.

“Megan?” she asked.

I nodded, wondering if my face looked as miserable as I felt. I touched the mouse under my eye, but a glance at the mirror showed that it was still concealed.

“Did you dump her, or did she dump you?” Jordan asked.

I shrugged. “Doesn’t matter,” I mumbled.

Jordan squeezed my hand. “Well, at least Lee is still your friend.”

“Not the same,” I mumbled again.

“Hmm,” she agreed. “Did he ask you out, or did you ask him?”

“Jordan!” I protested. “It’s—it’s not…” I didn’t finish.

She stood and reached for the laundry pile. “I found something in the dryer,” she said. “Speaking of Megan….” She held up a bit of lace. “Is this hers? It’s too big to be yours.” She giggled, waving the bra around.

---

Read ahead on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/100840181

“Coach says I should go out for cheerleader..."

“What if...” I began but did not finish. My brain went sideways as I realized that, sometime or other, I would have to tell my family what had happened to me. I must have looked stricken because Jordan’s face lost her grin.

“I’m sorry, Petey,” she said. “I shouldn’t tease you about it right after you broke up with her.”

I cleared my throat for lack of something to say.

She examined the bra again. “34C. Megan is a big girl, huh?” Her grin was back.

I rolled my eyes at her, and she giggled, folding the bra carefully and putting it in the top pull of my chest of drawers. “You never know. She might come back for it.”

Nothing I could safely say to that either, so I tried to change the subject. “What are you doing in my room, Jordie?” I asked.

She made a face. “I actually came back here to look for you -- I had a question.” She stepped closer, turned around and sat on my bed again. “It’s about football.”

“Huh?” I said.

“Petey,” she continued, “how on Earth did you make the team? When they had the call for sports signups, they didn’t even list that girls could apply for football.”

I blinked at her. “What? I mean, what?” Did she already know my secret? Did she find out from the cheerleaders? Just how many people knew?

“Look at you!” she exclaimed. “You sure don’t look like a football player! I mean, Jake is twice your size—not to mention a couple of those linemen.”

“I…? Yeah, well, uh—.” I stammered like a fool.

She stood back up and glared around at the posters on my walls. Football dominated the themes of my decorations. “You know, I’m on the soccer team at school. But no one really cares. Last game we played, on Thursday, had like twenty-six people in the stands. I counted them!”

Honestly, I hadn’t known she was on a team. I kinda felt bad about that, but she wasn’t done with complaining yet.

“I’m good!” She turned a glare my way. “I’m leading the league in scoring! I’m a freshman, and I’m playing varsity!”

I made a what-can-I-do gesture. That didn’t help.

“Meanwhile,” she sort of snarled, “you’re a football hero! You and Jake are going to take the Friendly Lions to the state tournament! You might even win some games there against bigger schools!”

I tried to say something, but she didn’t leave me room.

“Did you know there isn’t even a state tournament for girls’ soccer? There’s one in the spring for boys’ soccer, and nobody much cares about that either!”

I thought she might want to hit something, so I grabbed a pillow and held it in front of me. “Jordie—,” I started to say.

“You know, they don’t call me Jordie, or even Jordan on the team? When I’m on the field, I’m Little Pete! My name is Petersen, too!”

“Jordie, I’m sorry,” I managed to get out.

“Not your fault,” she admitted, losing a little of the wind in her sails. “But I want to go out for football next year. Real football, your kind of football!”

She frowned. “Coach says I should go out for cheerleader if I want some recognition.” Before I could comment, she struck a pose. “Can you imagine me in one of those skimpy outfits?”

Actually, I could, having seen how I looked in one recently.

She glared at me. “I’m too skinny, huh? I’m not built like Megan, or Joanna, the cow!” She sat beside me again, poking me in the ribs with a hard knuckle. “I’m built like you were three years ago!” She snorted. “So tell me why I can’t go out for football, too!”

“You could get hurt,” I hazarded.

She blew a raspberry at me. “You can get hurt at almost anything! But you should know, Pete. Is there any real, legitimate reason why a girl can’t play football?”

“I can’t think of one,” I admitted.

---

Read ahead on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/101676546

“Jake wasn’t my boyfriend!”

“Another question, Pete,” Jordan began. “How on earth did you convince Mom and Dad to let you play?”

I blinked. “Well, I didn’t really. It was the summer before last….”

She interrupted. “Yeah, I remember. You spent two months lifting weights.” She laughed. “You had your hair in that short ponytail, and you grunted and sweated twice a day for an hour, and Molly and I laughed at you.”

Well, yeah, they had. But the ponytail…? Did I remember that?

“It was August,” she mused. “As hot as it ever gets in Friendly, and you had to make yourself all sweaty and stinky.” She grinned, but then her expression changed. “Am I going to have to do that? To make the team?”

“Probably. You’re even skinnier than I was,” I said. I wanted to derail this conversation, but couldn’t really think of a surefire way to do so. “Uh…. What’s your boyfriend going to think?”

She made a dismissive noise. “I don’t have one right now, and if they can’t stand the competition, I’ll do without. But, hey! Jake encouraged you. Came over and served as your spotter in case the weight got away from you, kept telling you how good you were doing.”

Well, that was how I remembered it, too….

“That’s the kind of boyfriend I need!” said Jordan, completely derailing my brain.

“Jake!” I squeaked. “Jake wasn’t my boyfriend!”

“Well, sure, he wasn’t! That’s when he started going out with Joanna!”

“I—! You—! He—!”

“She had just gotten back from cheerleader camp and had her hair lightened, and was all gorgeousity and tits. Mom and I kind of figured that’s why you had your bodybuilder phase,” she mused. “Then suddenly, you announced you’ had joined the football team!”

My heart felt like a lump of lead, yet kept on beating. It seemed as loud as a two-stroke lawnmower engine, but Jordan didn’t notice.

“Dad didn’t know whether to be proud of you, or lock you in your room,” she continued, grinning slyly. “Especially after you and Megan started going out.”

“I’m not a lesbian!” I yelped, then cringed. Why did I say that?

“‘Course not,” Jordan agreed. “You’re going out with Lee this afternoon, ain’t cha?”

“It’s not a date!”

“That’s what you used to say when you and Jake spent every Saturday night together!”

“I—? We—? Who—?” I did, we had, and my sisters had teased me about it then. They had, hadn’t they? “Jordan!” I made fists under my chin.

“Snacks and a movie, right?” she responded. “If he pays, it’s a date!”

“He—he—he’s paying because…because—he took pictures of my butt!”

She laughed. She laughed!

I couldn’t help myself, . I tried not to, but I got the giggles, then the hiccoughs.

“Oh, Pete!” she crowed. “Your face!” She pointed at me and peered closer. “Sonuffa? Are you wearing makeup?”

“Joanna...,” I began.

“She talked you into it? For your date?” She was all a grin a yard wide.

“It’s not a date!” I denied reflexively. “She just helped me cover up a black eye I got….”

Her grin turned to a frown. “How in the world did you get a black eye at an ice cream party?”

“Well, uh, some guys showed up, and Joanna and I showed them the door? Joanna’s Aunt Bev invited them….” I let that trail off.

“You shouldn’t fight with boys,” Jordan scolded me. “You could lose and get hurt, and they get all bent out of shape if you win.”

I snorted.

“Boys are pretty stupid about stuff, ain’t they?” she mused.

“Sometimes,” I admitted.

“Like, do the guys on the team get jealous of you getting cheered and all that?”

“Not as long as we’re winning games,” I noted.

“There’s that,” she agreed. Then she grinned again. “Lee took pictures of your butt?”

“Movies,” I said, which set us both off with the giggles again. “It’s his job! He takes pictures of the team!”

“Starring Pete’s butt!”

“Well, the one he showed at the team meeting yesterday did!”

Now she had the hiccoughs. We got up and went into the laundry room for paper cups of water.

Standing beside the big stainless- steel sink, we sipped from the wrong side of our cups to control our hiccing.

She cocked her head sideways, looking at me between sips. “You never wear makeup,” she commented.

“Well, no,” I admitted. “I don’t want to be the only one on the football team with mascara in my gym bag.”

She almost snorted into her cup. “But you should? I think you should!”

I rolled my eyes, and we wandered back to my room. “I don’t think so.”

“Just a touch of lipstick,” she suggested. “With those new clothes and your cuter haircut, you could have Lee stepping on his tongue!”

My turn to sputter into my cup. “Jordan! Where do you come up with something like that?”

She grinned like I do when I make the yardage we need for a down. “So Lee took a movie of your butt and you got offended?”

“Not exactly….”

“Yeah, sure. It’s kind of flattering.”

“Pfft!”

“But to make it up to you, he’s taking you to see a movie he didn’t shoot!”

“Hah! Yeah, no.”

“Is it a scary movie? Are you going to see it in his van?”

“Yes, and yes!” I tried to snarl.

“Oo-oo!”

“Jordan, knock it off!” We were sitting on my bed again, and I glared at her in closeup.

She laughed. “If you get scared….”

“I said, ‘Knock it off!’”

“But you’re so much fun to tease!”

“You remember what I do if you go too far?” I asked, making sure that she did remember me holding her down and tickling her.

“Okay, okay?” She relented and changed the subject. “Where did you get the new clothes?”

“Uh, Joanna gave me stuff….” I just now realized that I’m sitting here with my sister wearing girl’s clothes. Even if they are boy-cut jeans, they’re a bit girly. I cringed, looking sideways at her.

“Must be some of her older stuff. She’d never get her fat ass in those skinny jeans,” she mused. “But you’ve got the more photogenic butt, anyway.”

“Is that a compliment or an accusation?”

She laughed. “You do look nice,” she added. “But I’m going to go see what I’ve got in the way of lipstick for you, ‘cause you ain’t got none, and remember what I said about Lee reacting to the new you, Big Sis!” She stood up and bent to kiss me between the eyebrows before dashing out of my room.

I sat there for a moment, then reached up to touch my forehead where she had kissed me. Did she just call me ‘Big Sis?’

---

Read Ahead: Pete 50.1 on Patreon!

Did anybody still remember I used to be a boy?

Was everybody acting a little crazy? Including me…

I sat there for another few minutes, then suddenly stood when I remembered that Jordan had left to go find some lipstick for me. Luckily, I didn’t have to go through the rest of the house to make my escape. I ducked out the laundry room door into the backyard, where Wug greeted me with a cheerful, “Guh-roof!” before going back to exploring what might be a gopher mound in the far corner of the yard.

Dad wasn’t home --probably watching the game somewhere with some of the other football dads-- and I wanted to avoid Mom, Jordan and Molly, so that meant back to Baby Blue and going somewhere.

It was still two hours before Lee would arrive to take me to the movies.

I tried to pull that thought back. He wasn’t taking me to the movies, like on a date. We were just going in his van. Together.

I groaned as I started Blue up, the engine purring smoothly to life; I wished my brain were running half as smoothly, but the stuff between my ears seemed to be firing on only five of six cylinders.

What had Lee really been thinking when he asked me out? What had I been thinking when I accepted?

The cheerleaders, except Joanna and Megan, seemed to believe I’d always been a girl. And Jordan? Her too, I thought. And number 17 of the ‘Dogs?

Did anybody still remember I used to be a boy? Jake?

I cruised Friendly’s main drag while I tried to think about it. I did remember being a boy myself… didn’t I?

I had to pull over, my hands shaking. I was right in the middle of downtown, a few doors down from the Traildust Cinema. But that wasn’t where Lee and I were going to see the movie. The sci-fi feature was at El Tesoro, the drive-in outside town. Both of them owned by Joanna’s family.

I sat for long enough that I ended up having to move the car so people coming to see the Sunday matinee could park. Lee would be coming to my house at three. Or was it at two? My thoughts were jerking around like a Mexican jumping bean.

I followed the loop around the airport, resisting the urge to take the turn toward the trailer park where Megan lived. I had no idea if she was home, and what would I do if I went there and she was? Have a good cry?

Unexpectedly, an image of Megan’s brother Travis came to mind. Not any sort of reasonable recall of him decently dressed, but that glimpse I’d had of him in his fiddle-decorated underwear sleeping on the couch.

I groaned, turning Blue east to drag Main Street going the other direction, my thoughts also circling back toward my rendezvous with Leland Frick. Why had he changed our meet-up to three when the movie didn’t start till seven?

---

Read ahead on Patreon: Chapter 50.2 https://www.patreon.com/posts/petes-vagina-50-103516358

“That’s Lee,” I said, feeling a bit relieved.

I ended up driving south on the highway toward Phoenix. Not a lot to see that direction—less forest and more scrubby desert hills, which kind of fit my mood. Contemplative but indecisive, like miles of sagebrush and manzanita, punctuated with beavertail cactus.

I turned around at the junction with the road to Roosevelt Lake, having used up about half the time before my rendezvous with Lee. True to the essence of the landscape, I had made no decision other than not to decide.

I considered driving over to Lee’s but passed the turnoff beside the country club without even looking at the sign. Lee’s mom was City Treasurer and kind of scary intense, with a penetrating stare that seemed very judgmental. Really, very opposite to Lee’s personality, but both were scary smart.

I didn’t make a decision, but I came to a conclusion. I liked Lee, and I wanted to see the movie. So I headed for home again, intending to get there at about ten before two.

* * *

I went in through the kitchen door to find Mom stirring up some orangeade. “There you are,” she said, smiling. “Taste this. I know you don’t like it too sweet.” She held out a glass to me. We made it from our own oranges in summer, but this late in the fall, she probably had to buy oranges at the store.

No ice. None of us liked ice in our drinks. I took a sip—tart but smooth. I made approving noises. “Thanks, Mom. We’ll probably get something to eat before the movie, so don’t put out any cookies or anything.” I don’t know why I said that.

She looked a bit disappointed but nodded agreement. She poured another glass for Molly, who had magically appeared.

“Cookies?” Molly asked.

“Pete says no,” Mom informed her.

Molly frowned at me, then shouted. “Pete’s here!”

Which brought Jordan into the room. “There you are!” She said, frowning at me too. “Do you want me to touch up the makeup on your eye?”

“Uh, no,” I declined.

“Makeup? What’s wrong with your eye?” Mom asked.

“Petey’s got a shiner,” Molly commented.

Just then the doorbell rang. “That’s Lee,” I said, feeling a bit relieved. “I’ll get it!”

But Mom grabbed my arm. “Let Jordan,” she said. “You never answer the door yourself, honey. Gotta make the boy appreciate you more with a bit of anticipating.”

“Mom!” I almost yelped, but kept it down so Lee wouldn’t hear. Jordan was already on the way to the door in the living room, Molly skipping behind her.

“Let me see that eye,” Mom commanded, holding me in place. “How in the world did you get a mouse at an ice cream party?”

“Gatecrashers,” I said. “Jo and I tossed them out, but I guess I got clocked in the scuffle.”

She scowled at me, touching a finger to my cheek. “Football and fighting, someone might actually think you’re a—”

“Gaylen!” Jordan shouted from the front room. “Leland Frick is here!”

---

Read More Pete on Patreon!

I clapped a hand over my mouth to prevent more giggles...

Panic!

“Lee’s here,” I murmured, but Mom had me by the elbow and didn’t let go.

Scandalously, to my mind, she pulled me to the side of the arch leading to the front room. “Let’s listen to see what he says to Jordan.” She whispered directly into my ear.

Which tickled! I suppressed a laugh, and of course, that came out as a giggle.

I’m dying, I thought. Or maybe just hyperventilating. I tried to hold my breath, but Mom, excited by hearing Lee ask, “Where’s Pete?” elbowed me in the ribs, provoking another giggle.

“Be quiet,” she warned. “He’ll hear us!”

I clapped a hand over my mouth to prevent more giggles, listening to Jordan stall.

“Pete’s embarrassed to come out right now,” Jordan announced. “There were gatecrashers at Joanna’s party last night and Pete picked up a shiner defenestrating them.”

“Ouch,” said Molly. “Now they can’t make puppies?”

I heard Jordan and Lee move around the living room while they laughed at Molly’s question. Lee tried to explain, “Defenestrate is to throw something out the window, but I’m sure Pete used a door.”

Speaking of a door, my eyes went to a potential escape route out the side door of the kitchen, but Mom clenched my arm and whispered, “Stay here,” before moving toward the kitchen counter.

I felt like my blocker had tripped and fallen right in front of me. That happened once, last year, when I played on the varsity squad in our homecoming game. I had felt a surge of fear, then exhilaration, when I decided to leap over poor Rudy Bartolo and run for the endzone.

Across the kitchen, Mom rummaged in her purse. I wasn’t at all feeling the thrill of a game. This time, with no goalline in sight, I stayed where I was, listening.

Lee’s voice sounded worried. “Is Pete all right?”

“Oh, yeah,” Jordan said dismissively. “Joanna put some foundation on it. You can hardly tell.”

Oh, crap! Lee’s going to know I’m wearing makeup! I looked at the floor. I wanted to kick something – but no Rudy Bartolo. I had very nearly kicked him last year before deciding to jump.

Now it was Jordan I wanted to kick, except Mom was motioning me to come toward her, and since she was beside the escape hatch, I hurried over—but quietly.

I reached for the door handle, but too late – she already had hold of my arm again. “Hold still, and look up.” she ordered me.

Startled, I did both, and she waved something quickly in front of my eyes. Then she opened the side door and pushed me through it. “Go out and come back in from the back hall,” she said. “And take this.”

I was out the door and sprinting toward the back of the house before I looked at what was in my hand. A tube of…mascara…?

---

Read ahead on Patreon

I’ve always had great lashes – even for a girl.

I got out the kitchen door as quickly as I could, but not before hearing Jordan tell Lee that she would, “Just go see what’s taking Pete so long.”

I sprinted for the back corner of the house, where I almost tripped on Wug guarding the door to the laundry room. The big furball seldom left that door unguarded for long, ever since a cat had gotten into his dog bed behind the water heater.

I went past the big double tubs and across the hall into my own room, remembering as I did so that Jordan had already invaded what was previously my masculine sanctuary once today.

The big mirror over my dresser showed me what Mom had been doing before I got away from her. My eyelashes were thick and dark… well, thicker and darker. I’ve always had great lashes – even for a girl. And I’d heard that a lot over the years. I sighed, looking down at what Mom had put into my hand. Yes, it was a tube of mascara.

Then I looked up at the mirror again. Had I always had a big, well-lit mirror over my dresser? I couldn’t remember it being different, but the part of me that was Pete, the football player, cringed a bit at my reflection.

Just then, Jordan burst into the room. “There you are,” she squeaked in excitement. “I heard you leaving by the side door and hoped you’d be back here.” She held up another tube, this one gold. Lipstick! That was what she had threatened me with this morning.

“Jordan!” I protested.

I had no other escape. I pushed past her and hurried down the hall to the front room.

Lee stood near the fireplace, looking bemused by Molly dancing in front of him.

I tend to forget that Lee is over six feet tall, even if one of his shoes has an almost five-inch platform. He loomed over my littlest sister, smiling as she asked him, “Are you going to be Pete’s new boyfriend?”

Like I’d ever had a boyfriend before!

“I think that’s up to Pete,” Lee answered with a smile.

I stood at the door to the front room, staring at him. “G-good to know that I’ve got a choice,” I stammered. I felt my face turn red.

Then Mom and Jordan caught up with me. Mom held something out to me. “I couldn’t find your bag, so I’ll lend you one of mine.” She pointedly held out a purse—a purse— open for me to look inside. “I put in some things you might need.”

I glanced into the small handbag, seeing two white cylinders. My insides turned to ice as I realized what they were and why I might need them.

Meanwhile, Jordan dumped her lipstick in, then took the mascara tube out of my hand and put it in there, too. I blinked at her.

“Petey,” she said sweetly. “You’re a hell of a football player, but you’re a disaster at being a girl.”

I nodded as she pressed the clutch into my hand. “I keep telling people that!” I said, trying not to whine.

Grinning at the byplay, Lee said, “You look great, Pete! Ready?”

I shook my head, but murmured, “I guess so.”

Inside, I was panicking: what if Lee were to offer me his arm? What was I supposed to do? Desperate to avoid such a situation, I scrambled out the front door ahead of him, and I left it open behind me.

I stopped there, though, looking at what was in my hand. This purse doesn’t have a strap!?

---

Read ahead on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/posts/106135312

Which was worse, stammering or giggling? I couldn’t decide.

Lee held the passenger door for me as I climbed aboard his “Frickmobile,” as the rest of the team had dubbed the modified Dodge van. I’d ridden in it before, but this time I noticed something different.

I settled into the passenger seat and took another sniff to be sure. “Why does the Frickmobile smell like laundry?” I asked.

Lee laughed. “Clean laundry, I hope,” he said as he closed the door.

I had to wait while he stumped around the front of the van to climb in on his side. “Clean laundry,” I agreed. “Kind of soapy and …uh… sunny?”

He laughed again. “I haul the week’s team laundry to Friendly Wash-n-Dry on Saturday, then take it back to the school Sunday morning after it’s clean,” he explained.

Which reminded me just how much Lee did for the team running errands and making sure small jobs got done. I resisted feeling guilty about it. I did things no one else could do, like 40 yards in less than five seconds. No one else in the league could do that except maybe Ginger on the ‘Dogs.

I blushed, remembering Ginger accusing me of stepping on his ankle. I didn’t, but yeah, he had gotten hurt. So, I was almost definitely the fastest high school football sprinter in Northern Arizona.

“His name isn’t Frickmobile,” Lee said, making me realize I had not been paying attention.

I blushed again, glancing at Lee, who wore a huge grin.

“Par’me?” I mumbled.

“The van,” Lee amplified. “His name is Horace.”

I felt my shoulders shake with a giggle. “Why—why Horace?”

“After one of the Dodge Brothers,” Lee supplied, “the good-looking one.”

I felt another giggle trying to bubble up. We were pulling out onto Ponderosa Drive now, and I grabbed the opportunity to ask something else. “Wh-where are we going? Th-the movie isn’t for hours.” Which was worse, stammering or giggling? I couldn’t decide.

“Uh….” Now Lee sounded a bit embarrassed. “I thought I could take you home? My Mom wants to meet you.”

“Meet me?“ I know I squeaked. I had met her, sort of, at official functions. She was a politician. At least, I think City Treasurer is elected, in Friendly. I’d only gotten old enough to vote in September.

Lee tried to explain. “Yeah, I guess? I mean, you’re the team star and—and I haven’t really been on a date since—uh?” He broke that off. “I mean not a real date….”

Horrified, I realized that he thought of this as an actual date. And everyone else seemed to think so, too. I don’t know what my expression was when I looked at him, but he did seem to draw back a bit.

He made the turn onto the Beeline Highway toward Phoenix and, incidentally, toward the country club where he and his Mom lived. I felt like I needed to say something, but my mind was blank.

Lee spoke first. “Actually,” he said. “It’s my middle name.”

“Uh? What is?”

“Horace. I’m named after my grandfathers. Horace Frick and Leland Speight.”

I giggled again. It just escaped. “My middle name is Hunter,” I said.

“And your first name is really Gaylen,” he said. “Not Pete.” He may have grinned at that, but he was looking left at the intersection, and I didn’t see.

“Both of those names, Hunter and Gaylen, are from my grandfathers, too,” I said.

“Grandfathers are the worst,” he agreed, and we both laughed.

Now he was looking right at me as we reached the edge of town and the turn-off to the country club. “I think Gaylen is a really pretty name for a girl,” he said — just before he looked left again to make the turn.

---

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I must have hiccoughed right then — because it was sure the wrong time to giggle.

Lee seemed to be in a good mood; it would probably upset him if I leaped from the van at the next corner, so I decided to tough it out. I felt a bit like when I had talked Jake into calling 17-56-Dive, which meant I took a handoff and tried to find a hole in the defensive line for a one- or two-yard gain.

We completed the turn onto Country Club Drive, and I sighed, releasing a breath I hadn’t realized I had been holding.

Lee glanced my way and flashed a grin. “Everyone seems to be afraid of my mom. I swear to you, she doesn’t bite.”

I recaptured the nervous giggle that had tried to escape. “Yeah, well….” I stalled.

“I think you two will get along well,” he said, still grinning. “You have a lot in common.”

“Huh?” I couldn’t imagine what.

Lee explained. “Well, she’s the first woman elected to city-wide office since World War II, and you’re the first girl to play football in the county, ever.”

“Ah,” I managed around the giggle I thought I had asphyxiated.

He laughed. “She kind of admires you. She said so.” He blushed. “Uh, well… what she actually said is that she admired your, um, your balls. Um….” He sort of trailed off, looking sideways at me with more panic than I had been feeling.

Now I laughed, and not a giggle. Lee looked as if he thought he’d mortally offended me. I felt the tension drain out of me. I didn’t have balls anymore, but it was nice to have them admired.

I shook my head. “Your mom must be more of a character than I thought,” I told him.

He chuckled, showing his relief that I hadn’t taken the compliment wrong. “In fact,” he said, “she’s been my encouragement for tackling the documentary I’ve been filming.”

“Uh? Documentary? You’ve been filming the Lions all semester. All our games and most of our practices. What’s the documentary about? I wouldn’t think high school football would be….” I trailed off as I realized what he was going to say.

“Well, sure, but the documentary is about you, Pete. You’re my star subject. Um…?”

I must have looked stricken, and I could see his anxiety rising again. Mine towered over the hills surrounding us, looming like a rubber-suit monster seeking a tempura snack.

We turned right on Lakeside Circle and followed the shore of the overgrown pond past the Golf Pro Shop and Clubhouse into the maze of curving residential drives that angled up the hillside. Godzilla retreated.

“It’s okay, isn’t it?” he asked, his voice catching. “I mean, everyone signed a release back in the summer, or I wouldn’t even have started….”

I felt like I might have kicked his favorite puppy. “Sure. Sure,” I mumbled. “We all knew you were filming….” In fact, I’d been counting on Lee to help make sure Jake got the attention he deserved so he could win a scholarship.

Lee nodded, relieved.

The houses we passed had been growing larger and more elaborate, rivaling the Linklater home where the ice cream party took place. As if to remind me of that, I felt a twist in my lower gut — a memento I would willingly have done without.

We pulled into a curving drive in front of a sprawling, timbered split-level ranch house, somewhat smaller and less ornamented than most of the neighboring haciendas.

I managed to get the heavy door of the Caravan open before Lee stomped his way around to hold the door again. I didn’t need the help, but I took his hand when he offered it to steady me as I clambered out of the Frickmobile. The texture of his skin was rougher than mine, and I could feel the strength in his arm as I let him take my weight. It was either that or jump.

I reflected that although the F-150 sat even higher than Lee’s Caravan, Jake had never offered me an arm to get down.

Then again, I would probably have slugged him if he had.

“I’m glad to see you smiling,” Lee commented. “Cause I’ve got something else to ask you? Un….”

A wind off the mountains ruffled my hair. “Ask,” I told him, pushing a stray lock away from my face. I turned to look directly back at him since he seemed to be just standing there staring at me for a long moment.

Finally, he shook his head and spoke up. “What…what do you want to be called?” He stumbled on the question. “I mean, everyone at school except a few teachers call you Pete. Um?”

I almost rolled my eyes at him. I thought about five years before when I had thrown a fit at home about being called Gaylen. For a time, my family had called me Hunter, but even Mom called me Pete more often than not. Except sometimes Dad was Big Pete, and I was Little Pete. And Jordan called me Gaylen or even Gayle, just to annoy me sometimes.

I sighed.

Lee’s brow furrowed. “I ask because Mom asked me. And I realized that I always call you Pete just because everyone else does. And then, and then, uh, I did something stupid.”

I frowned back. “What did you do?”

“Well, I’m making a documentary about you and the team, but mostly,” he swallowed, “mostly about you.”

“Uh, huh?” We were approaching the big, oaken double doors of the house set back in a sort of alcove.

“And, and, I would like to kind of keep a little journalistic distance between us.”

I stared at him in astonishment.

“I should never have asked you on a date,” he said, mumbling the last of that.

I don’t know why I did it, but I reached out and took his big, rougher hand in my small one. I squeezed three of his fingers and said, “Call me Gaylen.”

I must have hiccoughed right then — because it was sure the wrong time to giggle.

---

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I forgot we were holding hands ...

We were ten feet or so from the doors when they suddenly opened. Lee’s Mom, Ariana Frick, stood there smiling at us, wearing the sort of power suit you see women politicians in.

“There she is!” she said, beaming at me. A furry little torpedo broke from somewhere inside, squeezed past Mrs. Frick and ran out to fall, squirming with excitement, directly amidst the three of us.

“Yoodle!” Lee and his mom both exclaimed.

The Benji-shaped dog wriggled some more. I laughed and bent down to offer the back of my fingers to the pooch, who left off being an animated dustmop long enough to lick my hand. “Yoodle, is it?” I said, still laughing.

The dog confirmed my guess with a short, sharp yip, then transferred its attention to Lee. “Down, Yoo,” Lee commanded. “Back in the house! You know you’re not allowed out front without a leash.”

With a shake and another yip, the little dog righted itself and dashed back through the open doors beside Mrs. Frick.

I had to laugh again. “Is it a boy or a girl?” I asked Lee.

“He’s a good boy, but for a while, we weren’t sure. I rescued him from a coyote when he wasn’t much more than a ball of curly fluff.”

I smiled at Lee. Of course, he rescued dogs. “Yoodle is a cute name,” I suggested.

“Well, his full name is Snicker Doodle — for his color.” Lee waited for me to stop laughing, then continued. “But the vet said he was probably a poodle/Yorkshire terrier cross. So—Yoodle.”

Mrs. Frick looked a bit annoyed and took a step through the door to get out of our way. “C’mon in, Pete,” she urged. “I’ve got some people who want to meet you.”

People? “I think I may be allergic to people, ma’am,” I offered.

She laughed. Lee’s hand touched mine, and I found myself holding onto three of his fingers again.

Nothing for it, so I followed her pant-suited butt through the doors, still holding Lee’s hand.

A wide living room held handsome Western-style furniture in a conversational arrangement around a big coffee table. Two men were just getting to their feet, and a woman younger than Mrs. Frick was already standing. They all smiled at me, and I smiled back, ignoring the itching.

One of the men I already knew — Coach Wilson from school. The older guy looked like another politician whose face I’d probably seen somewhere. I had no clue who the young woman might be. Yoodle checked out each visitor in turn then disappeared under the coffee table.

Lee spoke first. “Uh, Mom. Pete —that is— Gaylen prefers to use her first name when she’s not on the football field.”

I threw him a glance. Close enough to the truth, and I knew I certainly didn’t look like someone named Pete out of my uniform and pads.

Mrs. Frick took the ball and ran with it. “Mr. Grijalvo, this is Gaylen Petersen, known as Pete to her school friends. Gaylen, this is Mr. Grijalvo, the county superintendent of schools.”

“Pleased to meet you, Miss Petersen. I’ve read about you in the paper,” said the older man.

“Thank you,” I said, using what little air I had saved for such occasions. “I think I’ve read about you, too.” My right hand was still clasping Lee’s fingers, and I didn’t think I was supposed to shake anyway. But yeah, Mr. Grijalvo was locally known for his fights with the State about funding for Star County schools.

“Mrs. Frick,” Coach Wilson interrupted. “Pete, er, Gaylen and I already know each other.” He grinned at me, and I managed to smile back. I’d thought he was at his home hosting some of the team and a few dads to watch the Broncos.

“Hi, Coach,” I murmured. What the heck was going on with this ambush meeting?

Mrs. Frick wasn’t done, of course. “Margaret Lynch is a reporter for the Friendly News and writes about you in the paper, Gaylen,” she said, waving a hand toward the younger woman. “But I don’t know if you’ve ever actually met. Maggie?”

“No, I don’t think so,” the young woman admitted. “Coach Wilson keeps turning down my request for an interview.”

Huh? I already had a bad feeling about this.

“Well,” Coach stammered. “The guys wouldn’t want you in the locker room, I guess?”

Miss Lynch glared at him. “I wanted to interview Pete, not the guys. You told me she dresses out in your office.”

Coach looked confused and then really seemed to notice Lee standing next to me. I forgot we were holding hands long enough for him to notice that, too.

Things just naturally got worse.

“Hey?” Coach asked. “Are you two dating?”

---

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“It’s like the end of some detective show, isn’t it?”

Lee and I pretended not to have heard Coach’s question, made easier by Mrs. Frick answering one I hadn’t had time to ask yet.
 
“It’s like the end of some detective show, isn’t it?” She laughed. “A bunch of people get together in a room and explain the plot to each other.”
 
“Oh, good,” I said. “Colonel Mustard in the Library with a Candlestick.”
 
Everyone laughed at that — even Yoodle, who came out from under the couch to push his way in between Lee’s legs, his tail wagging in a doggie grin.
 
Lee gave my fingers a squeeze, which seemed oddly reassuring.
 
Mrs. Frick picked up smoothly after the laughter. “We have something extraordinary going on here in Friendly,” she announced. “Nationally important, too.”
 
“Uh, oh,” I muttered.
 
“Our very own Gayle Petersen is the first female athlete in the country to play a regular offensive position on a high school Boys’ Varsity football team!”
 
“Defense, too,” Coach put in. Then he stuffed another of the cheesy snacks from the coffee table into his mouth and started to clap!
 
The others joined in, making it seem even more awkward that Lee and I were still holding hands. I rolled my eyes and turned to glance at Lee, who was looking back — a little too fondly, maybe. If he winks at me, I’m going to slug him, I told myself.
 
“Brava, brava!” Mr. Grijalvo added as the applause faded out.
 
Like a pro, Mrs. Frick recovered the initiative and ran with it. “Nationally important,” she said again. “People outside of Friendly need to know what you’ve accomplished, Gayle.” And damned if they didn’t start clapping again.
 
I resisted correcting her that my name was Gaylen, with an ’n’, and just shrugged. Maybe I would have tugged at my forelock, if I’d known where that appendage hid out.
 
Then everyone started talking at once, except Lee and me. Yoodle yapped, and Coach sprayed cracker crumbs while they mentioned press releases and television interviews. My face turned eight shades of red, and I tried pulling Lee toward the door, but he wasn’t moving.
 
“It’s Halloween this week,” someone observed.
 
“I have it from a good source,” said Maggie, the reporter, “that Pete is going to be going to school that Friday dressed as a cheerleader!” More laughter and applause — and some outlandish suggestions.
 
I liked it better when only Jake, Megan, Joanna and I knew I was a girl!
 
And speaking of Joanna — reliable source, my ass! I leaned a bit toward Lee and whispered, “I’m going to kill Joanna. You can help me hide the body.”

---

Read ahead on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/109695119

Why did I feel the need to mess with my hair?

What was happening? I was on a date with a boy, and I seemed to be enjoying it. This is my life now, I thought. I date boys. I even hold hands with them. Sometimes.

I flicked a glance at Lee Frick across the table. We’d been holding hands just a few minutes ago.

I’m on a date with Lee Frick. And he’s… nice. Smart! I’d known he was smart for a long time—and nice, I guess, that, too. A good guy, always doing something. Filming games and practice, and now it turns out he was making a documentary, sort of.

About me, apparently.

The waiter arrived with menus the size of a tabloid newspaper. I looked up at him, and I knew I was blushing because of the idea of Lee filming me. The waiter smiled, his eyes widening, and I blushed harder.

I tried to think about football. I still played football! The earlier kaffee klatch run by Lee’s mom loved that I played football— the only girl playing a regular football team position in the state, probably even in the country.

The waiter asked me something, and I seemed to have agreed to drinking lemonade.

I’d been playing high school football for four years and Pop Warner for three years before that. Did everyone now remember me as having been a girl that whole time?

“Do you like shrimp?” Lee suddenly asked.

“Huh?” I responded intelligently.

Lee smiled at me, and the waiter grinned.

“We live in northern Arizona,” I pointed out. “The only crustaceans within 500 miles are probably those red crawdads in the lower Colorado.”

‘They know how to do shrimp cocktail here. It’s good,” said Lee.

I shrugged. The waiter blinked twice. “I guess I’ll try that. I’ve had it before, in Texas, on vacation.”

“Two shrimp cocktails and a basket of sourdough biscuits,” Lee said firmly.

“Very good,” the waiter smiled, agreeing with Lee but looking at me. He’s flirting, I realized. He must be nearly thirty—ten years older than me, at least. Am I supposed to be flattered?

I turned back to Lee and saw him flash a frown at the waiter’s back.

I tried not to smile seeing that, but why should I want to smile?

“He’ll be back with drinks and the appetizer,” said Lee. “How do you like your steak?”

“Oh,” I said. What did I know? I’d figured the shrimp would be our dinner. “Um, medium, I guess.”

“Baked potato? Salad?”

My eyes got wide in pure puzzlement. “Won’t the waiter ask me this stuff when he gets back?”

“I thought… I thought I’d order for both of us,” he said. “I don’t like the way he looks at you.”

I made a noise that might have been a laugh. “Aren’t your eyes usually blue?” I asked. “Are they green today?”

He grinned. “Maybe. But I finally get up the nerve to ask you out, and no Cowboy Lawrence is going to crowd my moves.” He signaled something with his eyebrows.

Okay, this time the noise I made was definitely a giggle. “Cowboy Lawrence?” I repeated.

“Ten years ago, he was Number Seventeen on the Lions, same position you play now.”

“Oh,” I managed. I couldn’t resist looking in the direction the waiter had gone. and saw him talking to the bartender, who passed him a tray with two drinks. The bartender looked right back at me and smiled.

I looked away, noticing as I did so several other pairs of eyes pointed in my direction.

“Oh, God,” I murmured.

“How big of a steak do you want?” Lee asked, distracting me a moment.

“Oh, small one,” I said. “I don’t want to go to sleep in the movie. Is everyone really looking at me?” (Well, I needed to know!)

“Probably,” he agreed, nodding. “Let’s get the loaded potatoes: butter, sour cream, chives, bacon and cheese?’

“Good Lord!”

“They’re not that big,” he scoffed. “Blue cheese dressing for the salad?”

“Uh, sure.” Why did I feel the need to mess with my hair? I tried not to look around the room, afraid of catching someone looking back. “Why are they looking at me? I don’t know these people!”

“Well, they kind of know you,” he said. “Ever notice that the stands are always full at football games? Even when we play out of town. And you’re certainly the prettiest football player they’ve ever seen.” He grinned.

I rolled my eyes and didn’t giggle at all.

Lawrence (was that a first or last name?) arrived with the lemonade, biscuits and shrimp— the last of which was served in little glass boats, covered in a spicy-smelling red sauce, with tiny forks.

“Thank you,” I murmured, not wanting to look at him.

“Yes, thanks,” said Lee. “We’re ready to order now.”

“Very good,” said the waiter, pulling out his pad and pencil.

“A ranch-hand steak, rare, for me, and a medium cowgirl for Miss Peterson, loaded potatoes with everything, and salads with blue cheese.”

A medium cowgirl? That must be the steak. I blinked several times and managed a small smile in Lawrence’s direction.

“Very good,” he pronounced the order, beaming back at me and provoking another strangled giggle. (I never used to giggle, I swear it!)

Lee watched the waiter leave, sneering a bit. He really did seem jealous and I wasn’t sure how to feel about that. I didn’t remember ever having acted anything like this about someone paying attention to Megan, or Dolores, the only other girlfriend I’d had last year.

Wait. Did I have a girlfriend last year? Wouldn’t that have been— odd?

“So,” Lee began, “I’ve never asked this before. Why did you go out for boys’ football in the first place? You could certainly have played on any of the girls’ teams—or been a cheerleader?”

I made a face while I wondered what I would say to the question. “I guess I’d always thought cheerleaders were kind of silly. I was wrong, but I think I thought that.”

“Megan cure you of that idea?” he asked, a bit slyly.

“Sort of,” I agreed. “And just no other sport really appealed to me. And there was no girls’ football team.” What was I saying? “Not even flag.”

“You had to do some tall talking to get on the team. Title IX and all that.” The federal rule that said schools couldn’t discriminate against girls. “Coach Wilson told me that you just wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

I grinned. That much was true. “Coach kept saying I was too small, too thin. He worried that I’d get hurt.” I shook my head. This I did remember, but as the old me. “I pestered that man so much he said I reminded him of a horsefly with a mean on.”

Lee laughed with me.

“Coach Wilson says you finally showed up in a too-big uniform and joined in the scrimmages before you were even on the team.”

I nodded. “Uh-huh, I had to show him how fast I was, and that no one could catch me. I didn’t get tackled until the third game of the season that year.”

But remembering was like having double vision. The uniform had been Jake’s old Pop Warner suit, brown and black instead of Lion blue and yellow. Too small for him, it had fit me like a tent with my ponytail sticking out of the helmet in back.

Ponytail?

---

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“Sorry,” he apologized. “I didn’t mean to say that… out loud. I mean….”

My memories felt like double vision. Every scene blurred if I tried to think of myself as a boy called Pete, and clearer if I willingly replaced each mental image with one of me as a girl.

I leaned a bit sideways, looking up at the underside of the set of elkhorns on the wall, just for something real to stare at instead of mentally watching myself trying to walk in Mom’s heels when I was ten. Had I really done that? As a boy? The image of me doing it as a girl was so vivid.

“It’s not going to fall,” Lee said, sounding amused.

I blinked twice and pulled my gaze back down to my dinner partner. I must have looked like a goof staring at the antlers like that. I smiled. He smiled. Why did I feel a bit giddy?

“It’s an eleven-pointer,” he commented. The noise of the diners around us came and went arbitrarily: clinking and clattering of plates, cups, bowls and silverware, murmured conversation half-heard, laughter, and two people at a nearby table speaking in Spanish.

“Is that good?” I asked, trying to ignore overheard comments that might have been about me. Es la jugadora de futbol, numero diezisiete. Que linda es ella.

“I guess so,” he offered. “I’m no hunter, but I think it means the––stag?—was six years old or more.”

“Huh?” I blinked, another memory trying to resurface. My Dad hunted. In this part of Arizona, every man who ran a business practically had to. Had I ever gone with him? I couldn’t be sure…. A blurry image of me wearing a too-large orange and plaid hunter’s cap came to mind, with Daddy and his buddies laughing at me.

“You’re so beautiful,” Lee was saying.

I blinked several times, then laughed at him, and he turned red.

“Sorry,” he apologized. “I didn’t mean to say that… out loud. I mean….”

I shook my head. The salad and appetizer plates were disappearing as Lawrence arrived with the main course, along with some help clearing things away. The busboy looked about fourteen, all google-eyes and pimples. He looked everywhere but managed to lock gazes with Lee before realizing he was being glared at.

“Frick,” I said quietly. “Let him live.” Which got a laugh from Lawrence.

The steak that Old No. 17 put in front of me smelled rich and buttery, and looked half as big as my head. A glance at Lee’s plate showed that ranch hands really were expected to eat much more than cowgirls. “I’ll never eat all this,” I commented, especially with the accompanying baked potato, split and filled with sour cream, chives, bacon and gorgonzola cheese.

We didn’t talk much as we ate; the meal deserved our attention, and I managed to devour more than I expected to. After I pushed my plate away and Lee had done the same, Lawrence reappeared, asking politely, “A scoop of ice cream or a slice of cake to top things off?”

“I don’t think I could,” I assured him.

“It’s complimentary,” Lawrence explained. Meaning free.

I shook my head. “No thanks.”

After Lee also refused, Lawrence left a leatherette folder on the corner of the table and retreated.

Was the folder the check? How much did a meal like this cost? Especially with the price of the faux frontier swank added in? Certainly more than I’d ever paid on a date with a girl. But… now, I’m the girl. I couldn’t offer to pay half--that wouldn’t be right, I knew. But I wasn’t at all sure how I was supposed to feel about someone dropping a big dollop of cash to feed me.

Gratitude? Admiration? Relief that I didn’t have to worry my pretty little head about things like restaurant bills? I suppressed another giggle and an unladylike burp. The truth was, I felt a bit… smug. Like… I know I’m worth it, and I’m pleased that Lee thinks so, too.

“Let’s just sit here a moment before we have to give the chairs back,” said Lee, his expression betraying the fact that he had eaten too much, too.

“Suits me,” I agreed, relaxing into the comfort of the extra-padded seat. I looked around the room again, basking in the deliberately rough-edged luxury of it all. The heads of game animals dominated the decor, but paintings and framed photos shared the walls, going up to a plank ceiling from which hung six wrought iron chandeliers. A number of knickknacks filled small spaces, mostly teddy bears and model wheelchairs.

I smiled at Frick across the table, which still smelled of meat and spuds. “Thank you for a marvelous dinner, Lee. I wasn’t expecting anything so elaborate.”

“I’ve been planning this since August,” he admitted. “Even before Mom decided to finance my film project.”

I frowned, glancing at the leatherette folder still lying on the corner of the table. “Is your mom picking up the tab here?” Maybe I didn’t have a right to feel smug.

“Oh, no,” he assured me. “I have my own money for dates.” He grinned, showing a bit of sly pride. “I film commercials for the local TV station.”

“I didn’t know that!”

“It pays pretty well, too. I’ve done four so far, and the money mostly went into my college fund, but don’t worry that this meal is going to leave me flat.”

“I wasn’t worried,” I said, watching as he pulled cash out of his wallet and tucked it into the bill folder. Worried wasn’t the right word, but I was glad to feel my confidence reassured.

About that moment, a blonde girl around ten--the age of my younger sister, Molly-- appeared near the table, accompanied by a woman who surely must have been her mother.

“Number 17, Pete!” the girl quavered. “Can I have your autograph?” She held out a pen and a football program book from Friendly High.

The mother inclined her head and rolled her eyes, but with a smile.

“I—Sure,” I said. “I guess?” I glanced at Lee to see him holding up a 35mm SLR camera. Where had he been hiding that?

“If I can get a couple of pictures,” he murmured. “For the school paper?”

Mother and daughter agreed, and I wrote down their information on the back of a card the mother offered before signing the program. Mom was Cecily, and the little girl was Kendra.

“I play football with my brothers,” Kendra told me while I worked on my first autograph.

“Good for you,” I said. “I didn’t have any brothers, just sisters.”

“How did you learn the game?” she asked before examining what I had written. “To Kendra, always remember, you’re a lioness too.”

“Jake, the quarterback, was my friend since grade school,” I explained.

“Wow!” she exclaimed. “Are you two going to get married?”

Mom stepped in with an embarrassed laugh. “Honey,” she said. “Pete isn’t dating the quarterback. She’s dating this nice young man with the camera.”

“Oh,” Kendra sounded disappointed, then suddenly pushed closer to give me a hug. “It’s like a movie!” she said in my ear. “The team photographer has a crush on you, but you marry the quarterback in the end.”

We all laughed, but Lee didn’t really look as if he thought it was funny.

---

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“Do you speak French?” he suddenly asked.

It felt awkward waiting by the passenger door of the van for Lee to come around and open it for me, but I felt it would be more embarrassing to open it myself.

Especially since it turned out to be locked. A giggle escaped me when he opened the door and offered a hand for me to hold while getting in.

The van was really no taller than Jake’s pickup, and I clambered in and out of that truck almost daily, but this was different. This was a date.

I’m on a date with Leland Frick. I marveled to myself for maybe the twentieth time. And I’m having fun!

I took Lee’s hand and felt his strength as he lifted me enough that I easily put my foot on the nearly-imaginary running board, then levered myself up, turning to slide into the seat—slightly confused by but grateful for the fact I wasn’t wearing a skirt.

We locked eyes for a moment before he swung the door closed, and I felt myself smiling back to his—what else to call it?—shit-eating grin.

As quickly as he might with his handicap, Lee raced around the front of the truck to the driver’s side while I blushed and giggled at a private thought. If I’d been wearing the cheerleader skirt I had on at the ice cream party, Gentleman Lee would have gotten flashed while helping me into the van.

I hadn’t sorted out how I felt about that idea before he slid into the driver’s seat, showed me another grin, and twisted the key to bring his machine to life.

Late fall afternoons in the Arizona mountains can be spectacular. The deep green of the pines set-off the reds, yellows and oranges of the aspens and cottonwoods, and the smell of the mixed forest and desert coming in the vents was almost intoxicating. The road twisted and turned as we climbed away from the man-made lake, now and then giving us views of the sapphire water before we topped the ridge and started down to the main road.

Neither of us said anything until we were on the highway again. The drive back to Friendly, climbing more than half a mile, would take most of an hour, especially since we were going to the El Tesoro Drive-in on the far edge of town. We stayed quiet for a while longer. Time to think?

I didn’t want to think. There was way too much to consider--including Mrs. Frick’s plans for me. I really was the only girl in Arizona, and probably in the whole country, who was a regular position player on a high school boys’ football team. And I’m a star player, too!

I really hadn’t considered such a result when I went out for football back in freshman year. The thought hadn’t even occurred to me. Of course? But things had changed. I had changed… even if no one else remembered.

Lee’s mom was too much of a politician not to see how my new existence could be used to get publicity for the town, and for several of her pet projects in the area. I didn’t have to like it, but Mrs. Frick was a professional at getting people to come around to her views.

I sighed, and Lee flicked his gaze in my direction, not for the first time. Back at the restaurant, he had called me beautiful. I’d seen myself in mirrors. My black hair, pale skin and blue eyes were striking, but they had been so back when I was a boy. No one had called me beautiful then.

Lee let go of the steering wheel and lay his right hand on the console between us, palm up. Quite deliberately, I noticed. An invitation, surely.

I put my left hand atop his, palm to palm, and worked my more slender fingers between his. We clasped hands, palm to palm, briefly, before he had to let go to put his hand back on the steering wheel.

I sighed again. The Beeline Highway is called that because, for most of its length, it is arrow-straight. There would have to be a turn in just the wrong spot to put an end to our handholding. We were in one of those deep cuts through a hillside created with high explosives by the WPA back in the 1930s when the road was first built.

There would be another slight turn when we emerged from the cut, and then the road would be straight for miles. I kept my eyes on Lee, but I put my hand on the console between us as he had done before. He glanced sideways at me before releasing the wheel and covering my hand with his.

He tugged slightly when we clasped, but the van had bucket seats, unlike Jake’s pickup, so I was as close as I could be. Damn, I didn’t know how I felt about that.

“You’re distracting me,” he commented with a smile. But he didn’t let go of my hand.

I smiled back and felt myself blushing.

“Like that,” he said. “Such a pretty blush.”

I tried to pull my hand back, knowing that I was turning even redder, but he didn’t let go.

The miles rolled by, and we still held hands.

“Do you speak French?” he suddenly asked.

“What? No,” I admitted. “Some Spanish and a word or two of Navajo.” I narrowed my eyes a bit. It had been a very odd question to spring up. “Why?”

“Because you remind me of Carolyn Jones,” he explained.

“Who?”

“Morticia Addams on the old TV show,” he said. “And you make me feel a bit like Gomez.”

I laughed. “You don’t look a thing like what’s-his-face! You’re a blond, and they were both brunet!”

“Cara mia,” he said, lifting my hand to kiss my fingers, sending shivers all the way up to my ears.

He smiled a crooked smile directly at me.

I had to admit, with the smile, he did look like Gomez after all.

---

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If I laugh or giggle, is he going to get offended?

Okay, getting my fingers kissed was… unexpectedly exciting? As a romantic gesture, it had a sort of dorky charm—much like my date, Leland Frick. If I laugh or giggle, is he going to get offended? I tried to limit my reaction to a smile, but a giggle may also have escaped.

“You’re a nut,” I accused.

He actually waggled his eyebrows at me —a very Gomez Addams thing to do— but with his blond looks, it had somewhat less impact.

“Stop it,” I protested. “You’re making me laugh!”

Then we were both laughing and snorting. Had I ever laughed with Lee before? I didn’t think so. Normally, our interactions involved the team and his photography, and we both were rather serious about those things. In fact, we both were kind of too serious most of the time.

He had to look where we were going as we passed the Friendly People sign, and I looked away too, gazing out the windshield while trying to stop smiling. Dating Megan had been fun, but somehow not as… exciting.

Exciting? Lee Frick? I heard myself giggling again.

“What’s this…what’s this movie we’re going to see?”

“It’s called Alien—” he began.

“Oh, yeah,” I interrupted. “A monster on a spaceship thing?”

“Um, sort of,” he agreed.

“Have you seen it?” I asked. “It’s supposed to be scary.” I felt something. Not a shiver, but a… premonition?

“I’ve seen it twice,” he admitted. “It’s got some good direction and amazing special effects. And Sigourney Weaver is, like, badass.”

I laughed. I’d heard enough about the movie to know that Weaver was supposed to be the hero—or heroine.

I glanced sideways at Lee and caught him grinning back at me.

“You’re kind of badass,” said Lee.

“Me?”

“You play football,” he pointed out. “And I heard from Joanna that you and she took care of some party crashers.”

I laughed again. “Yeah, I guess so.” I knew I was blushing. The evidence indicated that Lee liked badass women, and that adjective could be applied to his mom, too.

Lee steered us through town onto the northbound highway, where the El Tesoro Drive-In lay near a mountain that provided it with earlier sundowns.

The football team would be headed this way in three weeks for another contest with the Winslow Eagles, who we were playing at home this coming Friday—the day before Halloween. And the week before the second Eagles game would be our last home game of the season.

“Homecoming,” said Lee.

“Um,” I said, startled. It was almost as if he had listened to my thoughts.

“Has anyone asked you to Homecoming yet?”

“Uh, no.” The sound the van made on the pavement seemed to change, getting louder.

“That’s hard to believe,” said Lee.

I moved a bit on the seat to look directly at him. “I asked Megan,” I told him.

He blinked. A lot.

“Is that…is that still on?”

I looked away again. We passed the turnoff that went toward the Petrified Forest and the Navajo and Pima Reservations. “I don’t know,” I said.

---

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Did I even recognize myself anymore?

The road out to El Tesoro Park-N-View was barely paved. The city hadn’t expanded in this direction as much as in others, perhaps because of fewer trees and rockier ground. More deserty seeming. I hadn’t said anything since Lee asked about Megan before we turned off the highway. The bleak landscape seemed to fit my changeable mood.

I knew Lee wanted to ask me to go to Homecoming…as his date. And part of me wanted him to ask. Which confused and, yes, depressed me a bit. Where had Pete gone? He wasn’t precisely macho but certainly wasn’t any sort of a sissy. Did I even recognize myself anymore?

We pulled into the lot of the drive-in on a short spur road that couldn’t be said to be paved at all, just desert hardpan—dirt that wasn’t quite solid enough to be rock. The suspension of the van groaned as we hit a bump or two, and some dust got into the cab from somewhere, bringing with it the smell of a summer that had passed months ago.

“Sorry,” said Lee, and I reflexively smiled in his direction. “Where should we park? Up close to the screen, or further back near the concessions?”

I looked at him blankly, then commented, “I’m still stuffed from lunch!”

He laughed and nodded. “Me, too,” he agreed. “We’ve got coupons for popcorn, but at the moment, I’d have to save it to make garlands for Christmas.” He made a face, then grinned.

I laughed at that, my mood lifting with Lee’s silliness. “I never realized what a goof you are -- and we’ve gone to school together since… what... seventh grade?”

“And I’ve always been a goof,” he assured me. He crossed the lot and parked sideways in Row C near the far edge, away from the entrance road. “Less dust,” he said as he set the brake.

“We’re sideways to how everyone else parks,” I pointed out.

He began getting out on his side. “We’ll use the van as our own private box seat,” he said as he clambered out. He shut the driver’s side door, and I looked around, confused for a moment. I saw him start around the front of the van, moving with his herky-jerky rhythm, so I opened the door on my side. And then there he was, offering an arm to help me down.

I blushed, and his grin got wider. “I’m not used to this. Jake never offers to help me down,” I said.

He scoffed. “I may be a goof, but Jake is a goober.”

I easily dismounted from the cab with only a light touch on his arm to steady me. “Thank you,” I said.

“No one understands why you and Jake never dated,” he commented as he slid the big side door of the van open.

I had to blink at that. “Dating Jake would be like dating my brother!” I told him. “If I had a brother.” And it was true. Jake and I had been like brothers. Was that not so anymore?

“Well, I don’t think Jake felt the same,” said Lee, as he offered an arm again for me to climb into the middle part of the van.

“Huh?” I said. The central seat had been turned sideways against the far side of the van, leaving the seat facing the open door.

“Jake’s feelings,” he said. “He certainly doesn’t think of you as a brother.”

I rolled my eyes at his grin. But, ouch!

I changed the subject. “What have you done to the inside of the van?” I peered into the opening, realizing that the third seat had been turned sideways, too, against the passenger side behind the sliding door.

“More room for cargo this way, loaded from the back end,” he said. “And still useable as a bus if needed.”

“Uh-huh,” I agreed vaguely. I grabbed at handholds and levered myself up inside. Using Lee’s arm as a bracing point would have just been awkward.

“Temptation,” he said behind me.

“What?” I asked, turning to sit in the sideways middle seat.

He climbed aboard, too, grinning. “Nothing,” he denied.

I wasn’t that naive, so I made a face at him but didn’t admit I knew he had thought about patting my ass. Less embarrassing to say nothing about it, but I wondered. Would Jake have done it…now?

Lee joined me on the sideways middle bench, leaving the big door open so we could see the screen.

He sat quite close and casually put an arm on the top of the seat behind my head. I turned to look up at him. Even sitting down, he was taller than me. “Cozy,” I commented.

“Uh-huh,” he agreed. He reached across his own lap with his free hand and captured both of mine in his bigger grasp.

The sun had continued its westering course, and now just touched the arm of the mountain -- sunset beginning. Already spotlights chased each other on the big empty screen. Soon it would be dark enough for the Coming Attractions.

I lifted my face toward his, closing my eyes.

---

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“Has he asked you to go to Homecoming with him yet?”

Someone rapped on the side of the van, and Lee abruptly pulled away from me and turned to see who had interrupted us.

I sighed.

Then I frowned, leaning a bit sideways to figure out that it was two cheerleaders, not in uniform, who had stopped whatever was about to happen. I didn’t remember their names for sure-- they hadn’t been at the ice cream party, and weren’t on the varsity squad, either. But there they stood, giggling at us and holding out an enormous tub of popcorn and two sodas. “Joanna sent us over with pogey bait!” one of them announced.

I sniffed, wondering if Joanna had spied on us and timed this interruption. Lee grinned at me sheepishly, then went on his knees to gather in the goodies without bumping his head on the van’s ceiling.

“Pogey is candy,” I pointed out, maybe feeling a bit grumpy. “Not just snacks.” It was a word Dad used, apparently from his time in the Marines, since some of the other fathers used it, too.

“Ta-da-a!” said the taller girl, producing boxes of Junior Mints and Whoppers Malted Milk Balls from her pockets.

“Has he asked you to go to Homecoming with him yet?” asked the other girl, earning an even more annoyed glare.

The first girl --Cathy-something, I think-- beamed at Lee as she handed over the goodies.

“No,” I said shortly.

Lee mumbled some thanks to them, and they both turned away, still giggling and whispering.

“She already asked Megan, ya doof. You embarrassed ‘em bringing it up.”

“But,” said the blonde, “if she’s a lesbo, why was she letting Frick kiss her?”

They moved away, still giggling and murmuring with occasional glances over their shoulders to meet my glares.

“Popcorn?” Lee offered, turning around, still walking on his knees.

“Thanks,” I said. Given our enormous lunch recently, it didn’t seem that appealing, but I put the container in my lap while Lee found places for the other items.

I watched him for a moment and realized that he was stifling laughter. My lips quirked, and suddenly we were both laughing.

“It’s going to be all over school,” he noted.

“W-what is?” I stammered between giggles.

“That I haven’t asked you to Homecoming….”

“Well, I will be there,” I pointed out. “I’m on the team.”

He laughed again, then struggled to pull a straight face. He plopped down beside me awkwardly, and I passed him the popcorn. What the heck am I still giggling about, I wondered.

He smiled at me over the bucket of buttery corn, and I smiled back, still wondering why I had the giggles.

“I can’t imagine you as… I mean, you and….”

I lifted an eyebrow, and the giggles stopped. “Me and Megan?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he breathed softly.

I looked out the van’s open sliding door. It was definitely getting dark outside, and the movie would be starting soon. “Ask me again,” I said.

He coughed nervously. “Gayle, will you go to Homecoming with me as my date?”

I closed my eyes. The thing was, I couldn’t imagine Megan and I doing what I knew we had done only the night before. At least, I couldn’t imagine us doing it again.

I opened my eyes and looked at Lee. “Yes, I will--and thank you for asking me,” I said.

He moved the popcorn out of the way and leaned in close.

---

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That makes two men I’ve kissed tonight, I thought.

I came in through the front door, knowing that Mom and Dad would still be up and there would be no way to avoid them. It was late, after twelve, but I didn’t think much of that except a vague unease that I did have school in the morning. Mom sat in the big chair directly facing the door with a book in her lap. Dad was on the couch, sitting up and rubbing his face.

“Hi!” I said.

Dad, his voice thick because he was obviously just waking up, said, “It’s twelve twenty-five, young lady.”

Had anyone ever called me that before? It was probably a mistake to grin at him, but it was almost too much like a scene from a sitcom.

Mom didn’t miss her cue, coming in with, “She’s eighteen, Harry.”

“Sorry,” I said, still smiling. “El Tesoro runs triple features on autumn nights, and we stayed for all three!”

The main feature, Alien, was the second bill at El Tesoro, preceded by a silly comedy called Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. Then we stayed to watch another sci-fi flick called Dark Star, also a comedy.

“Did you know it’s foggy outside?” I asked, changing the topic. “Lee had to drive back to town in it. We went kind of slow.”

“Oh!” Mom reacted differently than expected. “That road to the theater is so narrow!” Then she changed the subject herself, putting her book down and getting up to pull one of my coats from the back of the chair. “Aren’t you cold in that thin jacket?” she asked, holding out the heavier garment to me. Was this my coat, I wondered. The plum color struck me as odd.

“Well,” said Dad, relenting a little. “We worry about you, punkin.” He stepped up, taking the coat from Mom and holding it open for me.

“I’m not that cold,” I protested, but he was already wrapping me in the fleece lining and pulling me into a hug.

Getting hugs from my dad turned out to be an advantage of being who I had become that I would have discounted before. But I snuggled into it, and his big, beefy arms were comforting and reassuring as they went around me. Impulsively, I stood on tiptoe to kiss him on his stubbly chin.

That makes two men I’ve kissed tonight, I thought.

*

When I did get to my room, after promising to tell Mom everything in the morning, I found Molly and Jordan curled around each other in the middle of my bed, sound asleep. Molly had a tooth that was coming in crooked and she drools in her sleep. Fortunately, Jordan had thought of that and wrapped a towel around Molly’s collar. Little Miss had managed to delay a visit to the dentist for a couple of weeks but time was going to be up soon. Still….

“Hey!” I yelped. “Get out of my bed!” I flicked the overhead light on and off.

Jordan opened her eyes and winced at the flashing light. “Oh, hey,” she said sleepily.

“Up!” I said. “You two have your own beds to sleep in!”

“Oh, wow,” said Jordan, blinking in the direction of my Betty Boop clock. “It’s after one AM?”

“No, it’s not,” I reminded her. “I keep that clock set twenty minutes fast, so when I look at it, I have to think about what time it really is.”

“Oh, yeah,” she agreed. “That’s a stupid idea.”

“But it works,” I countered. “Now get up!”

“Stupid ideas for…” she began, but I grabbed her by the ankle, and she ended up squealing as I yanked on her leg.

“I’ll pull you right off in the floor,” I warned. “Get up, go to bed, and take Old Faithful with you!”

Just at that moment, Molly snored, blowing a bubble from her overflow. Jordan and I laughed, and Molly complained that we had woken her up, but I finally got the two of them to the door of my room.

“I need to know how your date went!” Jordan complained as I pushed the two of them into the hallway.

“Tough,” I told her. “Frick was a gentleman, and we saw the scariest movie in the world. Details in the morning!”

“I hear it’s really scary!” Jordan exclaimed, clinging to the doorframe.

“I almost peed on myself!” I admitted.

She giggled and I managed to push her a foot further out the exit.

“He was a gentleman? Did he let you sit in his lap ‘cause you were scared?” Jordan still wanted to know.

“Did he kiss you? Jordan said he would kiss you!” Molly joined the interrogation.

“Out!” I shouted and forced the door closed behind them, using the little-sister-latch to make sure they didn’t get back in.

I’d just got that done and pulled off my plum-colored coat (that I remembered as being navy) when Wug scrabbled out from under my bed and scratched at the door. “You, too, huh?” I told him letting him out into the hallway. “Jordan! The dog needs to go out!” I called as our oversize pooch headed toward her door.

I stepped across the hall and let Wug out the laundry room door, since Jordan had ignored his scratching, then I brushed my teeth at the laundry sink. The time began to catch up to me. I refastened the door to my room, hung my clothes up and stood there in just bra and panties looking at my reflection in the mirror above my dresser.

I yawned, more than ready to go to sleep. My bra went into the basket, and I stood in front of the mirror again. I sighed. I’ve got tits, I reminded myself. Not big ones, but they are definitely there. Since the change, I’d been wearing a chest protector as part of my football uniform. Even a bra was more comfortable than a plastron.

But the little string hanging from my panty leg reminded me of something else. I grumbled but changed my tampon, like Megan had warned me I would have to every night before going to bed. Not exactly a pain in the ass, but near enough.

Those had been Megan’s very words, and I smiled. I turned off the overhead light and crawled between the sheets.

The date had been a lot more fun than I’d expected. Lee Frick, of all people, had turned out to be sweet and considerate. And funny. And more. I smiled.

*

After the movies, we drove home and parked in front of my house. I’m pretty sure Mom peeked out and saw us there. We talked for a bit, and I kind of regretted that the van had bucket seats up front — not like Jake’s F-150, with its big bench seat. It would seem silly to suggest climbing in the back, and my face probably glowed in the dark when I considered actually doing that.

Finally, Lee climbed down and came around to my side, opening and holding the heavy door for me. I slid down into his arms and he held me up against him. I kissed him. On the lips. It seemed like the right thing to do at the time.

And an hour later, in the dark, alone in my bed, the thought of that kiss still made me quiver.

I fell asleep eventually. After my experience with Megan, I knew what sort of things would get my motor running without involving anything too icky, but I didn’t have enough gas in the tank to do any real self-exploration.

I dreamed, waking up several times to try to consider what I dreamed about, but falling back to sleep before anything much penetrated.

Several dream vignettes involved my younger self — some of them recastings of things I remembered from before, and some of them sheer inventions of my new self in situations I couldn’t remember ever having happened.

If you dream of remembering things that never happened, do they become more real? They apparently do. I seem to have served as flower girl at my Aunt Nora’s wedding back when I was five.

“Do I have to wear a dress?” I had asked perhaps thirty times. “Can’t I wear a suit like Daddy’s?”

“If you did wear a suit, I should hope you would wear it better than my brother!” she exclaimed. “He looks like he went out to sack potatoes and sent the sack to church instead of himself.”

“I d’wanna wear a dress,” I protested. “My feet get cold.”

“Hey! You little tomboy! I’m the one who might get cold feet here!” Then she laughed, grabbed me up and tickled me before passing me off to my mom. “Maddy! Take Little Pete here and show her how much fun dress-up can be!”

I remembered it all, like double vision, wearing a lacy dress with flowers in my hair, but also another memory, paler and less real, of a boy version of me in a tiny tuxedo.

I shook my head. I couldn’t think too much about it; it was crazy-making.

*

I got dressed and grabbed my bag of gym clothes from the laundry room, then headed out to the kitchen for some breakfast. I guess my mind was on one of the dreams I’d had, though, because the picture hanging on the wall just beside the kitchen door caught my eye.

I must have seen it a thousand times or more, but today, I stopped to look at it again. Mom and Dad’s wedding photo, one of those old ones where the photographer has added color to a black-and-white picture. Mom looked radiant in her wedding gown, with Dad solemn and a little shell-shocked in his tuxedo. It made me smile.

Mom spoke to me from near the sink. “Your father looks a little scared, doesn’t he?”

We both laughed. Mom dared say something like that because Dad had already left for the dealership to “crack the whip over the service department,” as he always put it.

“Harry told me later that he had just realized what he was getting into when that picture was snapped,” she said, coming over to stand beside me. “I was feeling like I’d won a great prize,” she added.

For some reason, that made me giggle.

Mom looked at me over the half-glasses she wore when working up close. “You had something of the same look when you came in last night,” she accused with a sly wink.

“Mo-om!” I protested, but I could feel my face get hot. Which made me think of the dream again.

“This is your wedding picture,” I said, and she nodded. “But I remember being in a wedding when I was small,” I mused, still a little disturbed by the memory.

“Oh, yes,” she agreed. “Your Aunt Nora picked you to be her flower girl. And you were so pretty in your little white gown!”

I blinked. She was confirming what I remembered.

“But oh, you weren’t any easier to get into a dress when you were five than you are now!” We both laughed, but she held up a hand. “I think I have a picture.” She started toward the living room, where we kept family albums in the console under the big TV.

I went into the kitchen — not sure I wanted my memories confirmed by hard evidence.

Mom kept talking from the living room. “Oh, Gayle, honey, you so hated that dress. You managed to ruin it with something — mud, or chocolate, or oil. We never figured out what it was.”

“Huh?” I said. “I don’t remember that.”

“Oh, yes,” she went on. I could hear her rummaging in the space under the television. “You actually wore your cousin Jonah’s tuxedo jacket over the dress. It was way too big, but it made you happy, even though you looked ridiculous in it.”

“Ridiculously cute,” she added.

I could feel myself blushing again as Mom came back into the kitchen carrying an album with a finger to mark which leaf to open it on. She laid the book on the table and showed me the picture, explaining, “We had a pic of you in the jacket, but I can’t find it. We took this one before you decided to collect slugs — or whatever you were doing in the garden.”

I stared. It matched my memory perfectly. “Oh, God! I’m adorable!” I whimpered.

After we laughed about my reaction, I decided to get out of the house quickly before she found more pictures. Besides, Molly and Jordan had gotten up and were now cooing over it, and I didn’t need that.

It wasn’t a game day, so I had a light breakfast of fruit, a slice of buttered raisin toast, and a glass of milk and got out the door before seven.

I pushed the photo out of my thoughts and tried to get into a Monday frame of mind. But then the events of the weekend wanted to crowd my consciousness — particularly last evening, and my first date with a boy. I managed to put it all aside. Monday morning team meetings started at 7:30, and Coach Wilson always threatened to make the whole team run laps if anyone were late.

Early morning in late October meant frost on everything, with misty breath and the sharp smell of pines in the clear air. Friendly is a great place to live in the fall, and we might get snow before Christmas this year. Tobogganing on the local hills was great fun and a trip to the real mountains to ski seemed likely.

I was putting my key into the ignition of Baby Blue when it occurred to me that I was wondering if Lee did any skiing. He’d have to have a built-up boot for his leg, wouldn’t he? I tried to push the thought away, but he was on my mind.

He’d wanted to come by and pick me up in his van this morning, and I had told him no, because I wanted to show off my new car. New to me, anyway.

Did Lee ski? I wondered again as I pulled Baby Blue onto the street. I could buy him a nice warm scarf for Christmas. He would look very good in red and black plaid. I felt myself blush again, but for what reason, I didn’t know.