SHAMrock Stand-in free porn video

Originally posted in Nifty TG Page, 3/2/98. Posted here to my new TG home by the original author. SHAMrock Stand-in By Dee Eon "You're all blarney!" my slighted eleven-year-old male ego balked at Maureen and my other Celtic Folk Dance Club troupe members; almost all girls from nine to fourteen save me in our dance studio right then, only the somber looks of despair and desperation in their faces assuaging my bridle of a major ego insult. "Sean--" their pleas chorused. "No way!!" "Sean McCullough, you're our only chance!" pleaded Mary, which was bizarre because the teen was always so pretty and cheerful. "Noreen's out sick but you know your sister's solo routine perfectly! You practiced with her at home from the start!" "Only because mom made me partner her--just like how mom being friends with Mrs. Mahoney drafted me in this club!" I bitterly snapped. "I'll do your chores for a month!" Maureen gushed. "Two! Three!! Sean, we've worked hard all year!" Despite my ire I had to admit that they--we all--worked damn hard perfecting our 1976 St. Patrick's Day Parade dance routines, which must've been hard given the interests other kids had. Still, their basic disregard of my ego and pride stung to the quick. "I still can't see why I can't do the jig being myself!" I grudgingly contended. "Sean, you know why!" eldest teen Aislynn said. "The grand marshal's expecting someone to perform the traditional solo jig for him!" "Well maybe it's time to break tradition!" Fionna added, "We know how hard it is for boys to dance in kilts out in front of people--" "Yea, that's why there's only three of us--and now you all want me to look even worst?" "Sean, you've always been only a strapping lad to us," Caitlin said like an assuaging flatter, only its intent fell flat. I snickered. "Right. Like you all would've asked husky ole' Kevin to take Kelly's place if she got sick?" "They're not twins--like you and Noreen," Patricia mildly stated. "We're not all that twin! She's got hazel eyes, mine's green. She's brunette, I'm redhead!" "Faking hair's easy and no one's going to notice eyes except up close." "You're all nuts! Besides how you gonna explain being a boy short?" "Simple; you just caught the flu instead of Noreen," Aislynn coolly directed. "Yea, nobody will ever be able to tell, not even Mrs. Mahoney!!" gushed Eileen, the nine-year-old then stupidly twittering, "I mean we can barely tell between you now!" I shot her a hot look and everyone fell silently sheepish at her gaff, all knowing that was a very sore point with me. My mind's-eye self-image was radically different from what others saw, but it didn't mean I wouldn't face the reality of mirrors. "Sean--" Maureen said with diplomatic reverse-psychology, "If you backed out we'd understand, but don't just because you think we'd laugh at you-- which we'd never do!" I curtly demurred, "Forget my feelings; Don't you all think this whole idea's sneaky and dishonest??" "Yes, it is," spoke up Tara, level-headed as her voice. "But so long as the grownups don't know anything about it, we've honored the Marshal's special request for a solo dancer for his choosing us as lead dance troupe this year." "Look, what's the shame in saying that the dancer's down with a cold, huh?" "The pity's that all Noreen's talents aren't," Lori sourly uttered and I was about to stomp out right then but their words rang true; the troupe's colleens never snickered or giggled at my scrawny frame and delicate features like the kids at junior high, and they never looked down on me except maybe for Noreen, but then sisters don't count. Still, I'd my pubescent male pride and a reputation at school to keep--which wasn't all that great since both Noreen and I went there. "Look, I wanna help, I really do," I demurred even though their faces didn't swallow it, "but if this gets out I gotta face all the guys at school after tomorrow and after that. I'm real sorry." "Sure," Aislynn moved up, her pretty face drawn with valiant futility. "Then right now and all night if need be, show me the routine!" I snickered. "Took us five months to get our steps right!" "I'd rather look the fool trying then apart when I could! Well?" she asserted, boring into my eyes if to shake me to start, and I gnashed my lip before the grim faces of a dozen desperate determined girls and suddenly, ironically, I felt like a yellow-spined sissy even worst than the one they wanted me to be. "Aww, shit..." I muttered, punching my thigh with misgivings. "Man! I hope the Hibernians don't catch wind of this!" "Stop crowding behind us like you're hiding!" Kathy admonished me in the middle of Fifth Avenue over the parade's din of brass bands and bagpipes and droning thousands lining the sidewalk as our reels trailed behind the watchful lead of our studio's matronly director, Mrs. Mahoney. "Not 'hiding'" I sniffed back to Kathleen as I shuttled out among the girls high kicking and skipping while step-dancing and slip jigs in their full lushly embroidered velvet dresses and shawls and waist tassels, white gloves, frilly white anklets and threaded dance slippers. Just like I was--except for one of Maureen's curly raven wig over my own auburn shag and wearing boys' briefs instead of panties as a last anchor of male pride. It was sobering enough sneaking into Noreen's costume at the studio before the parade and seeing how snugly it fit my lithe and leggy frame, but as Aislynn and Maureen briskly did my makeover I had to admit that the raven- tressed green-eyed 'girl' in my mirror only passingly resembled my raven- haired hazel-eyed sister, forget any boy or myself much to my male pride's chagrin. My sole comfort in all this, if you want to call it that, was how I so totally and unquestionably passed as one of the girls in public. It was my greatest nightmare that someone outside the troupe would detect some giveaway male trait in my disguise and kill my social life forever, but I passed with utterly invisible ease. It felt awesome and disturbing that even Mahoney seemed completely blind at recognizing me even with my un-Noreen green eyes and freckles. That Kevin and Bob in their black jackets and saffron kilts regarded me with sober sympathy wasn't all that surprising considering, but there was also a peculiar awe in the shy way they looked at me which felt uncomfortable and indefinably unbecoming. As the parade went on I felt ever more chagrined as my fake long curls bounced about my shoulders and my full pleated skirt flounced high from my open breezy legs, almost flashing my boys' briefs to the world with every kick and swirl. For the first time I really appreciated why kilts were woven of twill instead of light velvet skirts were! By parade's end though I was too tired to care, but I still had one more thing to do, and that was the solo performance that drafted me into this mess in the first place. So before a grandstand packed with dignitaries and politicians and white-tufted parade Grand Marshal Jim O'Donnell's chubby ruddy face, I came forward from the bated-breaths of my troupe and performed the solo slip jig I honed alongside Noreen. It was complex and very vigorous, but I wanted Noreen to look good very badly and though I didn't have her innate grace and fluid motion, the more muscular power of my tap toes rapping asphalt made an overwhelming impression. When I finished in near exhaustion my troupe broke out into an applause higher than the spectators. Jim O'Donnell stepped his way to us. "Mrs. Mahoney!" he greeted our beaming director, "What a handsome bevy of colleens and lads you've brought! Your club's won the Judges Choice!" Our troupe squealed and hugged in relief and disbelief, but my breathlessness was startled as O'Donnell turned to me. "And you were one most spirited hoofer there, lassie!" I blinked aback. "Huh?" "Not to mention being one lovely emerald-eyed bonnie!" "Huh?" I blurted, smirking at the other girls muffing their giggles before being caught in surprise as O'Donnell pinned a live shamrock on my lapel. "Er, thank you, sir." "My pleasure! What's your name, my flame-tressed lass?" "Name? Er--" "He's--She's--She's Sheila!" Aislynn blurted over my--and Mrs. Mahoney's--surprise. "Sheila O'Riley! He--she's just a little shy." He chuckled. "Well then, Sheila, my coy colleen; We want you and your group to dance at our lingus charity reception for the Irish Archbishop. Promise us you'll make that date, okay?" "Promise??" I blurted in shell-shocked bewilderment. Later on in private with Ms. Mahoney, Aislynn explained what happened. "...So that's why I called Sean 'Sheila', so's not to make you and Noreen liars about not knowing about it." Mrs. Mahoney huffed in exasperation. "Saints preserve us, you kids! Now that I know about your little shenanigans, if I don't come clean to O'Donnell I'm as guilty as you are!" "Mrs. Mahoney, if Sean wasn't passing as Noreen to O'Donnell but as another girl altogether like he thinks, there's no lie, right?" Maureen reasoned to our musive matron. "It's not lying if we simply don't say that Sheila's really a boy and that she won't be back, right? So Sean can still dance at the reception." "Wrong!" I snorted. "You have to!" Aislynn said. "O'Donnell asked specifically for you to come along." "Mean your 'Sheila', not me!" "Sean, Sheila O'Riley can't just suddenly disappear!" "Yeah? Just watch me throw on my jeans!" When I got home Noreen was strangely quiet in her sick bed, so I figured it might be the best time to tell her since she'd be too weak to chase me around the house. At first she was surprised then shocked then angry when I told then she did something really shocking; she kissed my cheek. "I saw it all on TV," she sly said, using her remote to replay her VCR of our troupe in the parade. It was so weird, just like watching Noreen herself dancing. In a funny way, "she" felt somehow more than my sister, but almost a whole different girl whose looks I could shamelessly awe and pine. It was a strange unsettling feeling. "Sorry you'll have to dance for the bishop," I apologized. "Why sorry? You'll be there." "Sure I will," I said before her meaning sunk in. "Mean, not I'm not--not like that!" "You agreed to it and that's made O'Donnell promise the bishop he'd see you dance." "I didn't agree; everyone else did!" "And what happens to our name when O'Donnell has no 'coy colleen' to show the bishop?" she pressed. "Mrs. Mahoney will be embarrassed and forced to admit a lie she's innocent to. We could forget about being invited next year's parade." Grim and reluctant I nodded. "But why can't you do it?" "Because I want to meet the bishop myself. Besides I don't have that force and style you showed. You ought be flattered." "Noreen, I can't pose as you again! They'll think we're twins--real twins!" "Not twins, because Sheila O'Riley's going to look a little different when she jigs again!" "What do you mean? I asked but she only coyly smiled. I balked through the day about it, but in the end my fate seemed preordained. Though I wasn't particularly devout, I was raised to respect authority and religion, and the one thing I didn't want to slur was any promise O'Donnell might've made to the bishop because of me. In one funny way I felt smug and flattered that my performance was that good, but on the other I'd have to assume the person of my own sister. At least it was for charity. "I didn't know we'd be dancing for him later instead of this!" my humiliation muttered. "It's protocol, Sean--and stop squirming!" Noreen chided on the receiving line at St. Pat's, like the other troupe girls wearing green dresses and dress pumps waiting to pass bouquets of roses to New York's cardinal and Irish bishop along with a sissy curtsy--just like the now chestnut-tressed Sheila had to do. "Can't believe I'm wearing green tights and girls' shoes!" I ruefully muttered, grimacing. "They're so tight!" "Just be glad you're going flat-chested!" Noreen quipped. Despite my chagrin and misgivings it went rather well, and I even felt a swell of delight as the cardinal received my roses and pert curtsy with an effusive smile and praise. O'Donnell didn't seem to notice Sheila's change of hair color or a semblance to Noreen and that was okay with me. Later after changing our troupe danced for him and I performed my solo instead of Noreen and everyone applauded at my second curtsy of the day. "Great, I'm through with drag!!" I gushed to my troupe later at a refreshment table sipping punch when a man with a bunch of cameras slung his neck sauntered over and beamed at me. "Hi! Sheila, right? Look dove, I'd like to take some pictures of Irish spots around New York for our lingus brochure, and between that lovely red hair and those big green eyes, I can do with a pretty colleen modeling for me!" "Model??" I nearly coughed up punch over my dress. "Er, she has to talk it over with mom--her mom first," Noreen chirped, quietly stepping on my foot to keep my balk quiet. "You're all nuts!" I scolded mom at home. "It's also a hundred a day we can use," Noreen put in. "Besides, who's going to recognize you except for some armchair travelers on the other side of the ocean?" Despite my severe qualms and misgivings, it turned out to be rather fun traveling around New York City to pose for Irish brochure pictures. I went to fascinating places, met semi-famous people and did lots of interesting things I doubted Sean McCullough could've or would've done. Because Sheila was suddenly the troupe's star attraction she just couldn't just disappear, but neither was I about to trade-in my kilts for anymore skirts so Mahoney made Sheila a 'guest dancer' for special occasions. Thanks to Mahoney's generosity and patience coaching my grudging cooperation feminine traits and mannerisms, Sheila's poise and grace modeling reaped nice checks and after six months even doing a few ads in girls' magazines. Mahoney's beautician friend gamefully volunteered to be my personal hairdresser and makeup lady which helped keep my wigged secret from my modeling agency. Still it took awhile getting used to donning dresses and jumpers and tights and smirking through makeovers into Sheila, though my male pride always wore boys' briefs instead of panties even when some modeling specs said I wasn't supposed to (like the camera could tell anyway!), but after a while the humiliation and self-consciousness faded and it became simply part-time acting work. In a way, since Sheila proved to be such a public plus to the troupe, I regarded her role as almost honored duty than humiliation. I was encouraged by the way my club peers took the same nonchalant attitude as a children's theater company about my occasional girl role, and Mahoney with her stage background also saw no difference in my playing a girl or a clown so long as I was getting paid, and the same view infected mom too. Maybe too much, especially when I'd bitter fights with her about Sheila taking offers to do commercials, which was one public exposure leap my male ego was dreadfully skittish to dare. Mom badly hid her charm with Sheila's looks and manner at my modeling locations, and I wasn't amused at all about her not-so-subtle fanciful teases about "bringing Sheila home" for awhile. So I spent most my spare time at football and basketball at the "Y" asserting and reinforcing my malehood before mom cut down my activities in fear of bruising my valuable complexion. Despite these drawbacks I had to admit that Sheila O'Riley's lot was a fun and exciting experience and certainly more than Little League; not too many guys spend each weekend dancing or modeling at amusement parks and cruise liners and Times Square and Catskill resorts and getting nice free treats, eats, and gifts--even if some were meant for girls. I still felt as macho a boy as I was before and so far being honed with passable girl-traits for money hadn't too much warped my self-image, and I felt quite self-possessed at keeping my "stage sister" as only a job separate my real-self until the good times came to an end once puberty mutilated my lucrative and accursed comeliness. "Er, Sean..." murmured Kevin almost like a sheepish child asking mom an absurd request sure to be denied. "Can I ask a--a favor?" "Sure. We're pals, aren't we?" "Well...it's--it's kinda a big favor." "Mom keeps my modeling money," I wearily warned in general. "Huh? No, I don't wanna borrow any money, but yeah...it--it's kinda about you modeling," he admitted, pausing, and suddenly I was aware that he had yet looked me eye to eye. "What about it? Another autograph?" I assumed. While Sheila was hardly a starlette--at least not yet, many junior high girls knew 'her' face from kid cosmetics and fashion newspaper ads and their brothers showed their friends tear-outs to ogle in school locker rooms. Though I turned a blind eye about the fate of Sheila's image after it was snapped--mostly to shy the sissy trap of vanity and disconnect from any part of a supposedly "stunning" subteen girl, Kevin and Bob couldn't keep from clucking at school that they 'personally' knew Sheila and often asked me for 'her' signed publicity shots. Mostly it was who mom obliged them a glossy "glamour" photo which I loathed with chagrin and not a little uneasiness, that being touched-up similar to those Scavullo shots of subteen Brooke Shields and Nastassia Kinski all guzzied up into sexy coed nymphettes. It portrayed Sheila as a teen siren whom you literally couldn't tell was even related to me with side-by-side photos, though I at best recall that photo session as five hours of facial pancake and goo, wig swapping and tight padded gowns. It was a photo that jarred my sense of malehood and maleness and kindled my first culpable wet dreams and a serious bout with masturbation all week which seriously warped my sense of directed desire. It also sparked my habit of shying mirrors as Sheila, to even shutting my eyes tight during my Sheila makeovers before my studio dresser's looking glass. Fortunately, my model agency killed any further spread of that photo before it corrupted Sheila's wholesome image as a normal fashionable eleven-year-old girl in jumpers, party dresses, tights, Mary Janes and scrunchies and fluffy full skirted dresses girls hardly wore anymore except for grandma's visits. But I couldn't forget the way that a "souped-up" Sheila could race one's heart and fantasies...and no only my own. "Er, no...not another picture." "So what is then? Boy, you and Bob been really acting weird!" I chaffed his odd sudden blush, another sign of acting peculiar ever since the parade a month ago, just like our once buddies-in-kilts camaraderie now subtly changed. We were still pals, but there was now some reserve in their regard of me, and sometimes I caught them staring at me with perplexed faces as though wondering a wild nameless wistfulness that somehow felt. "See..." Kevin gingerly began if mustering layers of courage to, "See, it's to do with--with Sheila. See, I...I told some of the guys on my block that I--I know her, you know?" "Already know that," I sighed. "Er, yeah...well, see...yesterday the guys were talking about going to Carl's birthday party Saturday and who's gonna show up...and, they started talking about the girls who'll show up, and they sorta asked me if I knew Sheila so well, how come I won't ask her to come, you know?" "You know why, Kevin," I sourly reminded, surprised that he even brought it up. "Er, yea, I know; Sheila only models, that's all," he sheepishly acknowledged then drew a sober breath. "Sean, I--I did a real stupid thing. I--I told them I'd bring Sheila to the party." I startled. "You what??" "They dared me!" he gushed, hanging it all out. "They didn't believe I really knew Sheila! Only that I just got a bunch of pictures of her, that's all! So I said I'd show them!" "Well, you're just gonna have to take it back!" I snorted. "'Sheila' doesn't do special appearances!" "I know, but--can't you just this one time?" Kevin soft-pleaded. "Look, Kevin. I just can't, alright? I mean, I'm glad you kept my secret all this time, but I just can't. Sorry." "I'll give you my dad's 1956 Mickey Mantle card!" "I don't collect." "Okay, my motorbike!" "Kevin, I'm just not doing it--period, okay?" "But all you gotta do's just wear her clothes for an hour--" "Kevin, it's not like Halloween! It's hard playing Sheila because I gotta psyche myself up into the mood to think and act like a prissy girl whenever I wear girls clothes to pass like a natural girl. That's how come I'm so good at it, but pretending it so hard wears you down from being a boy. Sometimes I do prissy things or say dainty words only girls do without even knowing it. It's scary. I can't explain it but it's true. That's why I can't help you; I'm trying to keep myself together as a normal boy, not half boy half girl, understand?" Kevin looked sober as a grave. "I--I just don't want to look like a liar or a loser in front the guys, that's all." "Sorry, Kevin. I wish I could help, but I can't. Sorry." I turned away and heard a sniffle behind me. "I was wrong to invite Sheila, I know..." Kevin resignedly apologized and a pathos tweaked my heart. "Look--" I offered, hating for feeling guilty for someone's depression, even if stupidly self-inflicted. "Maybe--maybe if I asked Noreen if she wouldn't mind passing as Sheila. She loves parties too." Kevin shook his head. "She can never be Sheila. Sheila's--Sheila. Besides, she only has brown eyes." He sighed in surrender and despair. "I guess--I kinda forgot who Sheila was really was. Even Bobby does sometimes. Sheila's totally awesome to everyone. That's why we brag about knowing her, 'cause you know what it's like when guys don't believe you're the kinda stud you say you are, you know?" I momentarily glared back at him, assuming a snide quip, but his innocent hangdog face only boomeranged his lament into the quick of my heart and mellowed it with sympathy and regret because I knew what it was like for your manhood to be questioned in spades. Thanks to Sheila's lingering mollifying character traits I was already being called a sissy behind my back at school, and as good as I was at besting some boys at sports, people were calling me a pretty tomboy. My second biggest dread was that maybe being Sheila was just a little too pleasurable. "Kevin better REALLY appreciate this!" I muttered at home as Noreen helped me into her old training bra over her tight spandex bodysuit. "Man, do I have to wear all this shit?" "My dress will fit better and you'll look a little older for him since he's thirteen." "Don't have to look THAT old!" "Well, Sheila O'Riley's supposed to be stylish and sassy, isn't that her reputation?" I grudgingly nodded at her reasoning and reflected how I would've felt about so casually donning a training bra months ago before steeling myself with the view of an actor or clown climbing into silly costumes and acting apart yourself. Except Sheila O'Riley was no mere silly costume, especially in mirrors which I consciously avoided during modeling gigs. It used to be simply a do-and-forget play acting thing, but now I found myself comparing Sheila to the foxes at school and leaving myself at once smug and awed and not a little troubled that Sheila seemed a lot prettier than most girls at school. At first I reasoned it was probably because "her" appearing in fashionable dresses was a lot more attractive than the ubiquitous unisex jeans and scruffy sneakers most girls wore, but lately I began to sense some indefinable turn coat teasing my male ego whenever I saw Sheila's reflection. It was crazy that seeing yourself could sprung such a weird perplexing feeling which was vague, disturbingly delicious and teased me to the male core. "Think I'm getting sissy, don't you?" I soberly asked and Noreen smiled. "I think it's sweet that you're helping out a friend." "Mean a real ass." "Still, he's in a jam and you care." "I'm only doing it because I know how it feels having guys ranking on you, that's the only reason!" I sourly retorted. "I wouldn't be doing this at all if I weren't half-sissy already!" "Or maybe stuck method acting?" "What do you mean?" "Well, you're a lot more sensitive to peoples' feelings than you used to be and even take time helping people out." "That's--just being polite." "Even so you weren't always like that. Always so surly about being teased about your looks and trying so hard acting macho that you were turning hard and mean. But now, because you had to learn how to act different to pass as Sheila, like acting gentle and speaking softly, you're feeling more tender then boys do." "You mean sissy," I sourly snorted and she smiled. "Remember our dance at the burn center children's ward? I don't think a boy would've hugged that little girl like Sheila did. I mean, a boy might care, but he wouldn't show how much." I reflected that day, that poor mummy-like little girl's tinker in my arms and doing my own jig for her. That felt so--satisfying and humbling. Here I was having private qualms over wearing girls' clothes and she barely had any skin left. "It's only things like that that make this whole drag shit worth it," I asserted even as my inner self prayed it was so. I hotly wished Kevin controlled himself as I gingerly flounced downstairs to meet his picking me up for the dance, yet I felt a weird tingling teasing me giggle instead of chiding him for looking up my legs and full skirt's chiffon bouffant slips, even if his vantage up from down the living room couldn't help it. "Hi," I said, feeling my voice somehow too shy and soft for polite greetings. "Wow--mean, Hi!" Kevin blurted, pricking my blushing ego. "Stop gawking! Acting like you never saw me in drag before!" "Not like this! Not without a costume!" he apologized, looking over my peach satin dress whose full shirred skirt's ruffled rim of Irish lace and shamrocks hovered about my pink silk-filmed knees and calves and my bowed pale salmon pumps. I shrugged my pouf sleeves which were blanketed by roiling chestnut curls that went with my own real bangs and ear ringlets. Noreen really went all out. "Well, I'm the same old Sean underneath all this, okay?" "Wish, Sheila! Man, you almost look thirteen--even fourteen now!" he gushed, mostly over my snug mounded bodice and its breezy scalloped neckline. My coral-glossed lips smirked. "Better not let him forget he's supposed be a lady!" Noreen lightly chaffed him just as mom walked in, looking nice in a cocktail dress herself as she beamed at me. "So lovely! You could be sisters!" "Oh Mom!..." I sighed in exasperation and abashment before my friend who'd no idea of my domestic identity crises. Noreen chuckled. "Let's get Cinderella to the ball before she turns back into a dude, okay?" During Mom's short drive we heard nothing but Kevin's gushing admiration of Sheila. Not about *my* modeling work posing as Sheila, but *to* Sheila about 'her' work and career. It dawned me that this was actually the first time Kevin spent more than a few social moments with Sheila, what the hustle and bustle of our dance engagements, and he never saw me modeling. So he was doing a great job showing me just how much he forget who he was really sitting next to and it was an eerie experience; on one hand I was flattered as heck but on the other dismayed by how intense his fascination in Sheila was. I didn't want to be curt and hurt his feelings and remind him who he really talking to, so rather than pop his happy fantasy's bubble, I just sat quietly, my folded manicured hands nestled on my spread fluffy skirts and politely smiled. When we got to John's house Kevin bounced out of the car to again run around to open the door on my side, during which I leaned to mom. "Mom, he's crazy about me--about Sheila!" I whispered in dismay of my seriously deluded friend. "He's not the only one!" she slyly said to my quizzical frown. Carl's house was packed with spiffy kids and entering, suddenly I felt a cold flush rush me stiff into a statute in an attack of shy anxiety. It was one thing to briefly meet my male peers while step-dancing or modeling, but I never went social with them, at least not my Sheila persona. I was especially petrified at being around so many boys so close. One or two boys I could handle, but a mob coming after me threatened to shatter my feminine pose as my gagged male ego lashed out at my girl effect with chagrin and disdain. I got away with playing Sheila so well only because I was able to suspend my sense of self and reality at doing it, but seeing guys being attracted to me, feting me, it was like being courted in a schoolyard as my true self. It was totally weird and ego shattering. It was like watching all your assumptions and hopes of how macho and manly you were and looked were dashed into splinters. I actually couldn't walk or talk. My stomach churned-- I felt a gentle prod at my elbow. "It's okay, Sheila," Kevin gently said. "Just follow along with me, okay?" Like a mute docile doll I weakly nodded and let him tow me to a less packed corner by an aquarium. I held my flat satin tummy as he took out his kerchief and dabbed my forehead of wet makeup. "Take it easy, Sheila. No one's going to bite you." "I--I was about to throw up," I sheepishly admitted, still trembling. "I--I almost lost my Sheila pose." "Mean that mood acting thing?" he said to my shaky nod. "Method acting. It--It's what keeps Sean and Sheila apart. It lets me act a girl without feeling like a guy in drag." "And being frightened by lots of people upsets it?" "No...just--boys." "What about the guys in the troupe?" "You're all in on my act and who I really am. I don't have to strain to pass you. When I model I only meet one boy at a time usually, and he's just there to model like I am. Not--not chase after me with those eyes like I'm a--a..." "Girl?" he answered to my feeble nod. "Maybe it's because you can't be like them right now; can't meet and dance with the other girls like you want to deep inside." "I--I don't know. Maybe." "In a way, maybe it's a good thing you feel so bad. I mean, if you weren't so worried sick about boys taking you for a pretty chick, your head would really be in trouble, right?" I had to giggle at that! That I was maybe turning sissy or gay from my Sheila role was a long lingering dread ever since I began, especially since I'd no gauge or benchmark of how much my masculinity was changing from her side-effects. Kevin hit my fear--and relief--on the head. "Thanks Kevin. I mean it, thank you." I weakly thanked, grateful for his keen sense. He warmly smiled and lead me to the refreshment table for some cold punch. I felt eyes following me and glimpsed at a dozen boys stealing looks my way. Kevin chuckled. "You remind me of the frightened does grandpa traps upstate with their big trembling brown eyes--'cept yours are a nice bright green." My male ego wanted to snort at his cute simile, but I dismissed it because the truth of it was was that I _was_ nervous. "I--I'm just not used to seeing so many boys staring at me so close." "Yeah isn't it neat??" Kevin clucked like a top rooster in a barnyard. "They didn't believe me, and now they're all sorry!" "Sorry?" "That they weren't so lucky!" he said in a way that made me giggle and feel warm and buddy-buddy cozy. Mom came over and noticed something because she broke out her compact and powder-puffed my face. "There! Belle of the ball again! Having fun?" "I wish Noreen was here to hide behind!" I joked, my pine suddenly sensitive of my reason being there. "Sorry, Kevin." "That's okay. Just make it up twisting--and no reels here!" I chuckled even as butterflies returned to my stomach as he towed me out to the jostling throng of dancers twisting to Chubby Checker and The Pointer Sisters. But as soon as the song finished a boy, a husky junior jock jumped in front of Kevin. "Next dance!" I was startled but recovered quick enough to see Kevin's glare. "It's okay, Kevin--you're my date--always," I asserted to his glower, meaning less to dissuade my claim-jumping dance partner than reassuring Kevin that I was alright. Suddenly, my self-conscious qualms vanished as I worried more about Kevin causing a scene trying to bail me out of an uncomfortable situation. I didn't need him sparring with some stupid jock out to spin his jive and shallow suave around me. Kevin's simmering eyes read the calming promise in mine and he grumbled off to the side. Nine songs and partners later, Kevin managed to jump back in. "See you're feeling a lot better now!" he chaffed. "Just tired," I wearily confessed through a propped model's smile. "Feels like I've done twenty jigs!" "Wanna rest?" "Please!" I chuckled and to the smirks of junior jocks and their sighing babes Kevin lead me to the kitchen then out the back door to the cool starry backyard. "Ah, great!" I sighed, taking my pumps off to stand on soft cool grass and smiled at his puzzled frown. "I don't really model this way dressed up," I explained, looking at my long pearly Lees' fingernails. "I mean, I'm supposed to pose a twelve-year-old kid, not some teenager!" "Well, you sure look like one!" he said, pausing a thoughtful moment. "You're gonna kill me saying this...but you're the prettiest girl here." "So I've heard!" I twittered, totally missing his suave pitch. "Those boys! You should've heard the lines they were giving me, asking me out to movies and Coney Island and baseball! They kept asking me to sneak out here all alone for air!" "Oh," Kevin said in a low sheepish tone. "You were out here already?" "Ten times! Like I didn't know why!" I slyly chuckled even as I snorted at their ill-concealed innocent attempts for a smooch. "Maybe just to cool off." "I don't think cool was on their minds!" I twittered to his frown. "In fact, some of them even tried to--to, well, kiss me!" I laughed the confession off but he looked more nonplused. "Er, did they?" "Did they what?" "Er, you know...kiss you?" "No, of course not! I mean, they tried but I didn't let them, sure!" "Good," he muttered if in vexed relief. I twittered. "I just hope they don't get any weird ideas what's going on out here this time!" "Er, well, what's so weird about being with a beautiful girl?" Kevin defensively rebuked, suddenly shying at my frown. "Mean, you're--look like a very beautiful girl, so if a guy did want to--to be alone with you, it's only-- natural, you know?" "Mahoney only taught me how to act like one, not be one," I thickly quipped, falling sober. "Maybe act too good." "What do you mean?" "At first it was only like posing and pretending, but now a lot of Sheila's rubbing off me I didn't expect." "Yea, I know; you're kinder, gentler, and happier than you were before," he remarked to my soft ambiguous grumble. "Well, I don't know 'bout 'happier'. Mean, I'm a boy." "That doesn't mean you can't like being happier if being a girl's more fun." "In some ways it is, in some ways not." "But don't you ever get curious what it's like?" "What's like?" "You know, finding out what it's like feeling all the way like a real girl since you're so close looking and acting it?" "I'm really as close as I want to be." "Afraid?" I smirked. "Afraid?" "Of seeing how nice it might be?" he asked like an innocent challenge, a contorted macho pride welling from my lie, retorting; "No, I'm not afraid. Why should I be?" "Are you sure? Really sure?" "Yes." Kevin paused and looked at for a few moments as though unsure to dare something and weighing mortal consequences. "Will you let me forget who you are right now? For a couple of moments?" Puzzled, I shrugged, and suddenly he stepped up and laid his hands on my puffy short shoulders, and before I could wonder his face dropped upon mine and alien lips pecked my sharp suck of startled surprise. I jumped back, flouncing like a fluffy buoy, at once appalled and nonplused, my gagged male ego erupting. "Shit!!" I sputtered, wiping coral gloss off on the back of my hand. "Hell's the matter with you??" "I had to," Kevin confessed almost proudly though sheepishly. "I've been dreaming about it so long, I--I just couldn't miss the chance." "Dreaming about it? You queer?" "No. You're so beautiful--Sheila." "Sean!" "No, you're Sheila. You wouldn't want me liking Sean so hard." "Same thing! Kissing me! Another guy! You a fairy or faggot or something??" "Then Bob's one too, because when we talk about Sheila we talked about kissing her too, no matter who she is." "You really mean that? Boy, this is too sicko weird! All this time I though you were a buddy guy, not some--some fag! Is this why you tricked me to this party, to try to make it on me on the sly?" "I didn't trick you, Sheila, honest! I would never hurt you, and if I did I'm sorry. Real sorry." "Yea, well, so am I!" I gushed, holding a lawn chair as I slipped Noreen's tight pumps back over my silken toes. "Man, I thought you were my friend!" "I am your friend, Sheila--!" "Stop calling me Sheila! I'm Sean!" I scolded, bouncing out of the backyard to the front sidewalk and jumping in our car's front seat with slam of the door, containing my anger and bewilderment and confusion as my backhand wiped my damp eyes. I didn't need this assault to my malehood. I was a normal red-blooded boy play acting a girl, period. Being Sheila was like a part in a theater or movie, no more. Why didn't Kevin understand that? But even more upsetting, why was I fighting so hard TO believe it? I must've sulked for ten minutes before I heard a soft rap at the door. "Go away!" "Sean--" he said as though my name were reluctantly forced "--I want to talk to you." "Go the hell away!" "I'm quitting the troupe," he said, pausing if I didn't believe it. "Hear me? I'm quitting?" I feigned callousness but his assertion perked my attention and dismay. Boys in the troupe put in extra effort and devotion just being there that couldn't be compared to the camaraderie of a ball team. You simply went through too much teasing and ribbing in school to just lightly indulge in Irish dancing in kilts, sort of like boys in ballet. You put up with the insults and taunts from other guys because you loved it to the marrow, like being a special and honored link in a thread twining your troupe and winding back into distant lands and time. There was a vehement fire and love that kept you there dancing, like with me. I couldn't quit. It was in my blood and I knew it was in Kevin's too. For him to even consider backing out was a very serious decision indeed. "I mean it, Sheila. I am!" "That's stupid!" I snapped back. "I'm not going back if I have to hurt you seeing me." "That's even more stupid!" I scolded, guilt piling on. "Go home and sleep it off, okay?" "I can't; your pictures are all over my wall." "So take them down, stupid! Gee whiz! I can't believe this! Quitting because you like another guy too much!" "I don't like a guy; I like Sheila!" "There IS no Sheila!" "Yes there is--if you let her come out!" "Come out of where??" "Your heart! The same Sheila I danced with! Let her say whether I was wrong." "That's nuts! I'm me--Sean, all of me!" "Alright, then I'll wait till she comes out!" he fumed then slumped back against the car door sitting on the curb, arms crossed. "You're nuts, Kevin!" I shouted, angry at the whole tangled mess. I couldn't believe all this! A sudden drizzle spotted the windshield. "Kevin, go inside, you'll get wet!" "Only if you open the door." "Don't be assy!" I said and the rain got heavier. "Kevin, go inside! You'll get soaked!" "No!" It was the start of a summer downpour. "Kevin, you're catch pneumonia, fool!" I yelled and when he didn't answer I unlocked and pushed open the back door and he jumped in, somewhat soggy. "You're nuts, Kevin!" I chided. I gasped as he suddenly reached over the front seat and turned the rear view mirror at me. "Look at it! Look hard!" he snapped. "That's what you do to a guy, okay??" He flopped back in the seat while the afterglow of fright held my eyes at the mirror, at the girl nestled in peach satin and lace and curls on the front seat. "You're gonna blame me for liking that??" I wanted to retort, to deny, but flypaper held me as I was totally taken aback. I always shied Sheila in a mirror whenever possible, partly from slighting my virility and from a fear of seeing my maleness whittled down to a totally contrary incarnation which most shined the best of me. My heart and soul were very much a boy's with the same perked horms gawking and drooling over pretty girls at school as any boy my age. Yet, ironically, my male ego worked against me whenever I caught Sheila in my mirror. She could've been my fourteen-year-old cousin; pouty glossy coral lips and wide emerald- green eyes fringed by lush feathery lashes on a creamy oval face framed by curly wisps of coppery curls-- Yes, I could see why Kevin called me beautiful because Sheila really was. There was just no relationship to the boy I was or used to be, God help my bruised struggling male ego! And if a thirteen-year-old boy like Kevin responded to that awesome effect as I did, who was I to really blame his reactions? To behold Sheila by herself, apart myself, by myself, was beyond flattering. It was...was... I swallowed a queer pounding sheepishness. "I...I suppose I asked for it, letting you ask me to let you--forget what I am." "I always forget that looking at you, Sheila." "But--I'm not Sheila!" I cried, starting at the brush of the back of his hand against my velvetized cheek, stroking it, my male ego's impulse to recoil from a boy's tender touch suddenly disarmed and silenced by some infathomable compelling. "Keep looking the mirror!" he snapped and my chagrin docilely complied. "Say that's not Sheila O'Riley looking back! Say that that's Sean a boy!" Boy? That was absurd. There may've been a boy somewhere, but he was obviously far away, his stalwart ego safe from slander and emasculation even while beguiling and betraying me while I gazed back Sheila's angelic face in awe as wonder grew breathless and fascinating and pounded with his every brush of my cheek as a weird tingle seeped up my spine and a throbbing tightness swelled beneath my fluffy lacy lap as though my boys briefs were straining against my snug satin envelope and suddenly I admitted what Kevin must've felt, what he must be feeling, what my faraway truth should be just like other men and boys smiling and winking at Sheila the coy colleen model and sassy Irish dancer which attention my male ego dismissed as blind annoying insults, but which I now couldn't deny the effect of the lass just the same of the angel my mirror. My remote real-self envied and imagined I was Kevin back there, anxiously and breathlessly watching Sheila revolve in her billowy rustling crinoline slips to sit up kneeling backwards on the front seat, looking back at me, a lost wistful expression on her lovely round face, her large timid green eyes widening as Kevin-me leaned forward and her feathery lashes shyly fluttered and knit shut, her coral lips slightly parting in the seconds of anticipation before Kevin-me's lips pressed their soft trembling sigh and gently closed them with awesome kneading osculation. "Oh, there they are in the car!!" a far away voice twittered like a hammer on glass, jarring us apart in a wild instinctive flurry of alarm and rustling skirts to flop back into our seats, unassuming and realizing the rain had stopped. Mom sauntered up to the car. "What you two doing in there?" "We were getting some air and got caught in the downpour," Kevin explained ahead of my gnashed lower lip. "We ducked in here. It --was closer." "Well, come on back to the party!" "I...my stomach's a little queasy, mom," I said. "I thought you went a little pale when you first walked in. Just as well. The girls hate you and the boys are scheming for you!" Mom chuckled, climbing in and driving home, first stopping by Kevin's. "Er, we gotta use the side door," Kevin said, looking at me hintingly. "I got that baseball card I owe you, Sean." "Okay," I quietly said, my mildly padded bodice pounding as I followed him up his driveway and out of eyeshot from the street when he turned and clasped my slim hands and gently drew my wild anxieties close, and though I felt skittish and feardul and unsure I closed my eyes and basked the press of his lips on mine again until the tips of my pumps felt so tight the pain momentarily derailed my heady daze, the break just long enough to give my floundering male ego a chance to flail out and grab my wits and wrest me away from the sweet stormy tempest, almost physically so because I nearly flounced aback, gasping. "Sheila--" "Ke--Ke--Kevin! Wait--!" I panted, struggling to tap my tattered male ego to keep afloat, to not fall into the inviting abyss of awesome warm snug affinities that he brought me to the edge of. "Kevin, don't! Please! I--I'm a--a guy! A boy!" "No, you're not. Not now," He stepped up and I drew back. "No, Kevin--" "You like me a lot, Sheila. I know you do!" "Yes--I mean--no! I like you for a--a friend! Not like--like this!" "Yes you do, because you're Sheila now, so it's okay." "Stop, please! Oh, my head's so--so--scrambled! I'm--Sean!" "You're Sheila! Look at yourself! Feel yourself! You're a girl now, Sheila!" "No--!" My lips gasped for air and reason inside a tight satin mold still trapping inside me the pounding taste of my first peck kiss and the crazed butterflies fluttering deep my stomach and the drums pounding deep my padded bosom. I was dizzy with confusion and clashing feelings I didn't want hurt or spoil. I was midway a swaying bridge where Sean's very being was being insulted the very worst way while Sheila's was being complimented with the highest homage. "Kevin, I--I--please, give me--time to--to think! O Gee God, I--I'm so...so confused!..." "Don't be," he said, gently brushing a wayward coppery lock from my cheek, "You're Sheila and Sean's Sean, and I won't mix that up any which way, promise, okay?" Gazing into his smiling eyes I feebly nodded as my docile daze let him steal another juicy peck before a car horn beeped. My tattered male instinct pulled me away and waved as I flounced on clicking heels back down the driveway. "Nice to see that Kevin had such a nice time with you. So, got your card?" Mom asked with sly funny voice. I blushed. "I--I guess I forgot--it..." "You're red as a berry! Is there something you'd like to tell me, Sheila?" Mom never called me Sheila alone because she knew it pricked my male ego to hit the roof, but suddenly it was on vacation, leaving my identity and soul floundering without an anchor or label. I sat there quiet in a heady haze, totally muddled in a sea of strange confusing sensations and sentiments and selves. The only thing I was sure of was that my natural but forbidden boys' curiosity of another boy's kiss conspired with my Sheila persona in a fantasy atmosphere to perk my blind whimsical hormones to nip the forbidden fruit by the excuse of seducing Sheila through an imagined proxy of Kevin. No. Can't make-believe how it didn't happened. I can't deny I invited it. Can't deny I feel deep affections for another boy-- No! If I'm to stay myself--stay Sean--and remain proud and true as a boy, if I'm to preserve my birthright and ego's honor and genetic heritage and allegiance as a male, then it was Sheila whom Kevin kissed, not Sean... Nibbling my slick coral-glossed lower lip and steeling down the drums fading deep inside my bosom, I quietly and prissily spread my rumpled skirts and huddled my silken knees and heels together and folded my hands upon my billowy lap just as I was properly taught. There. I'm steady and ready now, I calmly compromised inside my settled selves. I'm a-okay. So a-okay that on my next modeling call or girls' dance I'll wear panties like I'm supposed to, just like all proper girls should. Because I'm Sheila now and was ever since I first dressed so today and until I undress and go to bed. Tomorrow morning my brother Sean will wake up afresh and macho without any need to felt weird or guilty from what his other sister wears or did tonight with his best friend. My boyfriend. No need at all. Mom smiled at me and patted my folded hands and teased my curls. "Sometimes a flower seed takes just a little longer to sprout in perfect soil. We'll have a nice mom to daughter chat about dealing with boys, alright, Sheila?" "Yes, mother," I softly chimed in a world suddenly changed with dangerous delicious wonders and nothing was as black and white as I thought or wished they'd be. ***