~Senior Year in High School, half a decade ago~

Dating a cheerleader has its disadvantages.

Oh, sure, it certainly had its advantages, too, especially when the cheerleader had been your best friend for the past seven years, but there was always a price to pay for the advantages.

Today, another installment in the payment plan came due.

In the buildup to Homecoming, it was Spirit Week at school, with each of the five days having its own theme such as Blue and Gold Day on Monday for our school’s colours or Movie Character Day on Tuesday.

Cheerleaders, being the nearly literal personification of school spirit, were of course virtually obligated to participate. Boyfriends of the cheerleaders perforce had to as well. At least, if they wanted to keep their girlfriends happy. Actually, “partners” might almost be a better term, since Angela was dating a girl this year.

Until Michelle surprised nearly everyone by both trying out for and getting a spot on the cheerleader squad last year, I had always skipped out on pep assemblies, preferring to read or finish homework in the library. Sure, I had gone to my twin’s home games to support her even if I hadn’t cared that much about volleyball, basketball, or track and field myself, but I had always thought of “school spirit” to be a bit unnecessary.

But with Michelle on the squad, skipping out on pep assemblies was no longer an option. It wasn’t even a temptation. I would have been there to support her just as I was at games to support my twin. I probably would have even if we hadn’t been dating—she still was my best friend, after all.

Blue and Gold Day had been easy. I could have gotten by with blue jeans and a tee-shirt, but since Michelle had been dressing up a bit fancy, I had as well: dark blue slacks and a pale yellow dress shirt. No tie, however. Michelle had worn an ankle-length yellow skirt that was a bit billowy and a pale blue blouse.

Movie Character Day hadn’t been that hard, either, though it had taken us several weeks of time in advance to decide upon and then plan out our costumes. Part of that time had been coordinating with the rest of the squad. This year, they had come to a consensus that the squad and their partners would go as movie couples, which made it a little harder for Angela perhaps. Michelle and I had gone as Beauty and the Beast, in their ballroom dance costumes. That conveniently let us do blue and gold for a second day. We had even arrived at school early to do an “impromptu” (that is, practiced for three weeks prior) re-enactment of the dance just inside the doors where everyone arriving by bus would have to stream past us.

Today, however, was Crossdress Day.

For seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth grades, I had studiously avoided doing anything for Spirit Week. Well, one year I had researched the other school’s colors—the one our school would be playing for homecoming—and worn their colours (black and red) on Blue and Gold Day. But I hadn’t done anything else, not for the easy Blue and Gold Day, not for the complicated Movie Character Day or Remember the ‘80s Day, and not for anything else in between. Certainly not for Crossdress Day! I had my manly pride to consider even if I didn’t have school pride to display!

Last year, however, Michelle and I had been “officially” dating for some months when Spirit Week rolled around. Looking back on it, I’m sure that people had certainly thought we had been a couple for years prior, but my mother had been old-fashioned, so I hadn’t been allowed to date until I had turned sixteen.

That night, after my sister and I had celebrated our joint sixteenth birthday party at home, Michelle and I had gone out to eat at one of the fancier local restaurants—not a diner, but something listed as “fine dining” in the tourist guides. It had ostensibly been her birthday present to me. As she had slid next to me in the booth instead of sitting across the table from me, I had turned to her in surprise, only to have been struck speechless when she had kissed me on the lips. “I’ve waited three years to do that,” she whispered, “Will you be my boyfriend as well as my best friend?” There are some moments that live with a person forever. That kiss will forever be just a recollection away—just as any other person’s first kiss always is.

Anyway, we had thus been “a young couple” and she had been a new member of the cheerleading squad, and so I had, under duress, had to wear a dress. I had drawn the line at wearing her uniform as she had initially suggested, and instead we had gone with a Little House on the Prairie look. The long dress and bonnet of Laura Ingalls would have let me be somewhat anonymous were it not a small school where almost everybody knew almost everybody else.

This year, however, I wasn’t able to weasel my way out of it. It was our senior year and thus the last opportunity, so I was going to be going to school in a cheerleader costume. Scratch that. Not a costume, but an actual uniform. Michelle and I were roughly the same height, her a little tall for a high school girl and me a little short, and she was athletically built rather than voluptuous, so her uniform would basically fit me. Our feet were even close enough to the same size, so from head to toe, I would be wearing her clothes.

Once it had become clear that Michelle really wanted me to do this, I hadn’t actually tried to argue that hard out of it. Michelle was my Kryptonite, my Achilles’ Heel.

Unlike last year, however, there were additional preparations. The Little House on the Prairie look was modest and a high school cheerleader was, well not so much immodest exactly, but without a doubt more glamorous. Certainly with much more leg showing. So yesterday, after school, Michelle had driven me to her favorite salon across the river, and I got to experience something very few men ever do: a beautician using hot wax to pull out hair by the roots followed by tweezers to get any left over. On a scale of one to decapitation, it didn’t really hurt that much except for the inner thighs and the back of the knees. On a scale of one to mortification, however, it ranked fairly high on the embarrass-o-meter, especially with the work on the upper legs and lower abdomen. I don’t want to call it a bikini wax, but … well, it entailed that. Fortunately, as a blond, I wasn’t hirsute and the body hair I did have was light and fine, so other than the discomfort—more to the psyche than to the body—there weren’t any problems. By the time the beautician was shaping my eyebrows, I barely noticed the tweezing.

The other preparations were less physically problematic but almost no less damaging to my manly pride. However, some of them weren’t really things that could be done too far in advance, so I had spent the night at Michelle’s. Chastely! We were young and there were some lines we weren’t yet ready to cross even if nearly everyone else assumed we had, judging by the frequent lectures my mother had given me. Michelle had a brother four years older than her, so it was his former bedroom I had slept in on those frequent “spend a night over”s.

The major preparations that couldn’t be done too far in advance were hair and make-up, so it was for that reason we were up at three in the morning, several hours earlier than necessary to get to school on time. True, I could have had my nails done at the salon, and I had been letting them grow out for a few weeks in advance, knowing this was coming. However, Michelle wanted to do the nails herself.

My fingernails were first gently filed, rounding them to a more tapered oval shape. “If you really were going to cheer,” she commented, “they’d have to be almost as short as you normally keep them. They get in the way, otherwise.” Then polish was applied in alternating blue and gold, not a standard color scheme for nails, but since they were our school colors, the look would work for the day. Once the base coats were dry, something that took a lot longer than I had expected, Michelle got to work on decorating them. Using a glittery, white polish, she spelled out “IHS” on the index, middle, and ring fingernails of my right hand, putting a star on the nails of my thumb and little finger. “CHEER” was then spelled out across the nails of my left hand.

If I turned my hands palms out so I could see the nails, it looked like it said “CHEER ☆IHS☆,” but with palms toward me and nails out, others would be able to read it in the proper order, with IHS first.

After the letters were carefully written out, Michelle then outlined them in black using the tiniest brush I had ever seen. If it had been on a computer screen, the black line wouldn’t even have been a pixel thick, but it was enough to help make the letters pop.

Finally, after the letters dried, she applied one more coat of polish atop, some sort of clear, chip-resistant coat that made the matte blue and gold base coats shine and enhanced the sparkle of the glittery white.

After she had spent over an hour on my fingernails alone, I developed a new appreciation for the amount of time that girls spent “getting ready.” Maybe three in the morning wasn’t all that much earlier than necessary. My twin wasn’t one to wear makeup, so I hadn’t gone into it with any real baseline.

Michelle then did my toenails in pale pink. “No one else is going to see these, so they don’t need to be in school colors,” she had explained. Honestly, the pink wasn’t that vivid. Enough for me to notice it, since I knew to look for it, but not an eye-catching shock pink. There was no decorative script laid down, but the pink was followed by the same chip-resistant clear coating. While the fancy polish on the fingernails would have to come off tonight, my understanding was that she wanted me to keep the toenail polish on for some days longer. Argh, my manly pride! But when it comes to keeping manly pride satisfied or keeping girlfriends happy, the scale should definitely always be weighted toward girlfriends.

The uniform was next since the rest of the cosmetics might be smudged by getting undressed and dressed, so….

A few articles of clothing in hand, I retreated from her room to the “guest room” (her brother’s former bedroom). Underwear first, she had chosen something plain cotton in blue and gold, with metallic gold cheer briefs over. After that, I slid into a short, pleated white skirt, too short to pretend to modesty. It was actually a little shorter than regulation, not quite reaching to mid thigh, but maybe that was just due to the difference in our sizes. Just a finger’s width up from the hem of the skirt were two thin stripes, blue above gold, for our school colors.

Then, with me half dressed, I walked back into her room to find her standing there with…. “Falsies? You didn’t buy them for this, did you!?”

Blushing, she shook her head, “No…. I’ve, I’ve had them for a couple years. I bought them online before I… Well, never mind! They come with special tape to attach them to your chest, and they won’t fall off even if you do try to do any tumbling routines.”

I’m sure my manly pride took a critical hit then, as she affixed the triangular tape to the back of the silicone forms and then pressed them against my chest, securing them in place. They weren’t particularly large, the falsies no bigger than her own real ones, but … I did my best to not look down at my mostly bare chest. And intensified my not looking down as she helped me into one of her bras.

“If I was going to buy some for today,” she said as she was adjusting the fit of the bra, “I would have splurged and bought something bigger. But then I’d have to borrow a bra from your sister, and maybe part of Tara’s uniform.” She winked at me, to show she was teasing, and softly laughed at my blushing response.

The rest of the uniform consisted of a long-sleeved, thin white shirt, not quite reaching the top of the skirt, and then the blue, gold, and white top, called a shell, of the cheerleading uniform. The shell was sleeveless and v-necked, predominantly in dark blue, but with gold stripes at the arms, below the bust, and hem. White-outlined, blue capital letters spelling out “FISHERMEN” were superimposed over a large, golden, capital “I.”

Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!

Now basically dressed, I sat on the edge of her bed while Michelle brushed out my hair and pulled it up into a high ponytail. Against my mother’s wishes, I had been growing my hair out for years now. It was no longer the buzzcut I had been required to have when I had been younger. And since my hair now normally reached to my shoulderblades, it was long enough for Michelle to style it, if albeit a bit simply. Rather than the little elastic band I normally used to bring my hair back in a low ponytail, Michelle kept my hair in place with an overlarge blue bow. “The girls with darker hair use yellow bows, but blondes like you and me need a bit of contrast,” she explained.

Following the uniform and hair, she then brought over what seemed to be half the stock of the cosmetics aisle of our small local drug store. Concealer, foundation, lip gloss, eyeliner, mascara, an entire palette of eyeshadow, and maybe even a few other things I didn’t have a name for. And even the things I had the name for, I didn’t have the skill for. But all I had to do was sit quietly while she worked her magic, closing my eyes when directed, pursing my lips when directed, and tilting my head from side to side when directed.

None of all that was needed last year. The dress had been a bit of a problem to find, but Laura Ingalls was from a different era and different background. I hadn’t needed to have the hair ripped from my legs since the long dress would cover them. I hadn’t needed to wear a bra with rather realistic (and probably expensive) falsies since the character I was portraying was young enough to still be undeveloped. And I hadn’t needed to sit through an hour-long cosmetics session since a lot of that stuff wouldn’t have been available to a poor girl on the prairie. This year, however, we were going all out. It was, after all, our Senior Year.

Finally, with something pinching at my earlobes, Michelle stood back and made an approving sound. “Go, look in the mirror while I get you a pair of socks and shoes.”

I did not recognize the girl in the mirror. I couldn’t see myself in that cute, young, blushing girl. She looked like, well, maybe my twin’s or Michelle’s younger sister—a freshman or sophomore maybe, but never a senior in high school. The makeup, for the most part, wasn’t even that obvious. The sparkly blue eyeshadow, yes, and the glossy pink lips were just a little glossier and pinker than natural, but the rest…? I turned my head from side to side, looking at my reflection. Whatever she had done to my cheeks was done artfully enough that I couldn’t tell that that they were touched up and enhanced with anything. True, I knew they were, and I knew their reflection wasn’t what the mirror normally showed me, but I would not have been able to say how the foundation and blush and who-knows-what-else had done the transformation. It was like magic. And my lashes, well … they were longer and darker than I had naturally, but if I saw a girl with them, I wouldn’t have though they were augmented with makeup. Just showed the depth of my ignorance, I guessed.

As I was studying the reflection, I was able to figure out what the pinching at my ears had been. Michelle had applied a pair of magnetic clip-on earrings. They weren’t anything super girly, like pink hearts or little unicorn heads, nor were they anything ostentatious like big hoops or dangling ornaments. Instead, they were a pair of small silver stars, slightly glittery in the reflected light. I … I kind of liked the look. Maybe a little more muted instead of sparkly, but perhaps I’d try getting my ears pierced after graduation, when I wouldn’t have to listen to my mother say anything about it very often.

While I was dealing with the conflicted feelings my altered reflection brought me, Michelle came back carrying a small pair of white socks and her so-called “cheer shoes.” They were basically immaculate white tennis shoes with blue and gold laces. She set the footwear down atop the vanity and placed a hand on my shoulder, looking into the mirror and meeting my reflected gaze. “Goddess above, Sugar, but you make for a cute girl. I’m almost jealous.” Gently, she turned me around and kissed me lightly on the lips. Then she touched a finger to her own lips. “It’s a little weird kissing someone else with lip gloss, but I think I like it.” She kissed me again, a little more firmly, and the spark was almost as strong as our first kiss more than a year ago.

Voice slightly husky, she shooed me out of the room. “If you really were a girl, I’d go dyke for you in a heartbeat…. But…. Now, go, put on the shoes and socks before I smudge your makeup and have to redo it since you don’t know how to touch it up. I still have to get dressed, you know. And remember, don’t rub at your eyes!”

I nodded and picked up the shoes and socks. Leaving the room, I practiced the walk she wanted me to use. The slightly bouncy step with a little extra swish of my hips certainly didn’t come naturally, but, well…. It matched the style.

Then, fully dressed and sitting carefully on the edge of the bed, I mentally reviewed the cheer routine. Just like yesterday, there would be a bit of a show just inside the doors to the school—only this time, it wouldn’t be ballroom dancing and it wouldn’t be the both of us in the proverbial spotlight. I would be the sole performer while she she remained on the sidelines.

Michelle’s passion was theater, but that extended to choreography. Shortly after she had joined the squad last year, she had started developing various cheer routines for the girls. She had adapted some of them for me and then spent the past several weeks working with me until I had learned them. They were much more dance than anything else—I just wasn’t up to the level of athleticism of even the junior-most members of the squad, so cartwheels and even elaborate jumps were out.

Between learning the dance for yesterday’s performance, the cheers for today’s performance, and preparations for Thursday’s and Friday’s events, we had barely had time to keep up on homework. I got most of mine done in the library while Michelle was at cheer practice, but I’m not quite sure how she managed. Maybe she had planned ahead and had worked ahead, giving herself some “easier” weeks for schoolwork to balance the extra work with dance practice and costume making. She was, after all, no slouch with her grades, being on track to graduate as Valedictorian.

We had, of course, taken breaks here and there to play some matches in various games or to watch recordings of her favorite shows, but it had very much been a busy several weeks. Fortunately, after today’s, the performances were much less demanding, for me anyway: Throwback Thursday would be ‘50s fashion and a sock hop and Formal Friday would be a variation on the Beauty and the Beast ballroom dance, albeit with different outfits. They’d also be much less embarrassing, but as long as I focused on being in “character” rather than it being “me,” I should be able to survive. I just had to think of it as role-playing.

Michelle’s outfit was, for today only, not on the same theme as mine. Since I wasn’t an athlete, she couldn’t wear my uniform. I had even eschewed Boy Scouts since they were sponsored by the local church, so there wasn’t even a scouting uniform to adapt for her. Instead, she drew upon theater and went in a Newsies style, somehow managing to hide her hair under a newsboy cap. In addition, though I have no idea how, she even managed a close approximation of stubble and a vestigial mustache using nothing but make-up. It wouldn’t survive a touch-test, but even from close up, it looked like real hair.

Her bookbag for the day was an old-fashioned, canvas messenger bag. Mine, well, it was her cheer duffle bag, all in blue and gold and with assorted cheer-themed bangles and ornaments. And, of course, with “IHS CHEER” emblazoned across both sides in bold, block letters. The bag had my books, Luna, Michelle’s pom poms (which I would be using), and a change of clothes for her, which she’d need for practice. My change of clothes was staying at her place. That meant my Crossdress Day wouldn’t end for several more hours after the school day ended since I would need to wait for her. There was no way I was going to walk home to get changed since there was no way for me to get to my bedroom without going through the living room and thus past my mother. Some things … she didn’t need to know.

My nerves were starting to get to me on the drive to school, and the steadying hand Michelle put on my leg didn’t really help. Instead, it mostly kept my attention on my smooth legs and the shortness of the skirt.

We arrived early, but not early enough to beat everyone else who drove. The stairs up to the school’s entrance felt like a hundred miles, and I took a deep breath as I walked through the doors and into the wide, open area where hallways branched off to the junior high classrooms, to the gym, to the office, and to the high school halls in the other wing of the school. I tried to ignore the voices by mentally running through some of the routines again, but nevertheless I heard some of the students’ chatter.

“I thought all cheerleaders were participating in Spirit Week.”

“Of course they are.”

“Then why’s she in her uniform? Shouldn’t she be dressed as a boy?”

“Maybe she’ll change in the locker room?”

“Look again, I bet that’s a boyfriend?”

“No way! She’s too cute to be a boy!”

“Yeah, you might be right—”

The rest of the squad, it seemed, had beat us here. Michelle and I were surrounded by close to twenty girls, though except for Tara and maybe Cecily, they all passed well enough as guys in their costumes. Several were dressed as male athletes. Besides Michelle, there was another newsboy—I recognized Katelyn by her red hair, even if it was mostly done up and hidden under her cap. There were a couple in suits, and all five of the freshmen made for a convincing boy band. Angela and her partner went as cowboys, going for the Brokeback Mountain look.

Besides Angela’s girlfriend, only one other of the cheerleaders’ partners was here yet. Jeffrey Farseer, a defensive lineman on the varsity football team and debate club captain, was looking particularly uncomfortable. He, too, was dressed in a cheer uniform. Well, his was more a costume since he wasn’t anywhere near the size needed to fit into Tanika’s uniform. Instead, they had approximated the look with clothing from the the thrift shop. Unlike me, however, he wasn’t even trying to pass. No makeup, no shaved legs, and no falsies. As I squatted to place the bag out of the way and retrieve the blue-and-gold pom poms, he walked up to me. “Man, bro, that takes dedication. Mad props to you.”

He then retreated a good distance away and the cheer squad and Michelle abandoned me after each girl had complimented me and wished me luck.

It was time. I took a deep breath, caught Michelle’s eye, and nodded.

“H E double-L O. Fishermen Spirit says ‘Hello!’”

The assembled girls roared back with their “Hello!” in response.

The routine was just under eight minutes in length, alternating classic cheers like “Two bits, four bits” and “Spirit, want to hear it” with pom-pom shaking, short dance routines. The three main set pieces were an excerpt from the “Imperial March” from Star Wars, a single-dancer variation of the cheer routine from Lucky Star, and, of course a cheer version of the clap-clap-stomping of Queen’s “We Will Rock You.” The accompanying music was provided by Michelle’s cell phone, hooked up to the cheer squad’s portable speakers.

By the end, it wasn’t just the cheer squad and a few students watching, the crowd that was assembled included nearly half the school. It was around a hundred and fifty students and at least two dozens adults, those being teachers, administrators, coaches, and even the librarian. Apparently, unlike yesterday, people arriving on the buses didn’t stream past, but stayed and watched—and participated. The crowd response parts of the cheers were just as loud as any pep assembly, but part of that might have been the exuberance of the squad doing the responding instead of their accustomed cheering.

Then the five-minute warning bell rang, and the crowd started to disperse. Michelle gave me a quick hug in violation of the school’s anti-PDA regulation, but none of the assembled faculty said a thing against it.

Following that, the rest of the squad surrounded us, each wishing to tender her congratulations before heading off to her class with a “See you at practice!” which, this time, was also directed at me and not just each other.

Gathering up the duffle bag and stuffing the pom poms inside, I made my way down the hall to my first class, doing my best to keep with the bouncy, swishy gait Michelle had had me practice. My twin fell in step beside me. “I see all that practice over the years has finally paid off,” she teased.

“Don’t you dare tell anyone about that!”

She snorted. “Hardly. Mother would ground me for the rest of the school year until I graduated and moved out if she ever learned how many of those pictures were you instead of me. Anyway, I just wanted to say you were fantastic. I was impressed. If I hadn’t known better, I would have thought you were one of the squad. Only your voice gave you away. Now go, and try to stay out of trouble today, Lexy.”

Most of the day was a blur. I never got heckled, though I did hear a lot of whispering that I couldn’t make out. More than half the girls had participated in Crossdress Day (though to be fair, crossdressing wasn’t that hard on them since girls wore pants with much more frequency than boys wore dresses or skirts), and all of them wanted to compliment me and my look. I even had a few jealous comments about my fingernails and how Michelle had decorated them.

Very few guys had participated, however. There were those coerced by their cheerleading girlfriends, a few of the athletes wearing tee shirts with feminine designs, and Coach McNarma wearing vivid pink sweats. However, other than me there were only two other guys who seemed to put any effort into it. One of the junior high students I saw in passing was done up in a Tinkerbell costume, and Mr. Schenk, the homeroom teacher, had shaved his prodigious mustache and dressed in a nun’s habit. He had even given the non-crossdressers an extra-credit assignment to write an essay on the benefits of school spirit. Those of us who had participated were given full marks for the extra credit.

The school day came to an end with me sitting in the first row of the bleachers in the gym while the cheer squad stretched, did their warm-ups, and practiced. The girls kept trying to get me to join them in practice, but I demurred, giving the very reasonable excuse that I didn’t have appropriate clothes to practice in. The coach offered to rustle me up a pair of sweats, but Michelle came to my defense.

The coach had to settle for having Michelle and I demonstrate a couple of the modified routines that Michelle had designed for me since they might be suitable for the squad to adopt. Well, that and telling me that it was too bad that I was a senior, or else she’d have tried to recruit me for next year’s squad, no tryouts necessary.