Double Cross - 3. Chapter 3

Jamie sat on the bleachers, knees pressed tightly together. He watched Dee pace the sideline, yelling encouragement to her players as she directed them on and off the field. She spoke briefly in their ear, often sending them into the game with the same swat on the rear she’d delivered to Blaine earlier.

Dee held easy command over the team. Aware of all of her players, attuned to their strengths or shortcomings, she praised and encouraged as needed. Jamie watched her fluid movements as she strode up and down the sidelines. Short, blond hair glinted under the cap. Eyes keenly swept the field. Dee seemed again oblivious to Jamie, ignorant of the yearning warmth with which he watched her.

Jamie’s eyes fell to his clasped hands, pressed between his knees. They were thin. He know they moved with a grace and elegance generally not associated with men. His legs looked seductive, the limbs alluring and smooth under the skirt. His girl self had never been so evident, so visible on the surface.

A latent breeze passed, and he shivered. Sensitized nipples chafed gently under the cotton shirt. A shadow fell in his line of sight as something dropped over his shoulders.

“You look cold.” Dee stood in front of him, brown eyes watchful.

“A little.” Jamie drew the jacket she’d placed over him closer. “But now you’ll be cold.”

“No.”

She took a seat next to him, surprising him, and then shocking him further when she put an arm across his shoulders, drawing him in. The warmth from her body suffused one side of his. Air left his lungs, blood rushed down to his still active cock and he drew breaths in short, shallow pants. Her unexpected solicitousness squeezed his chest.

“Your game?” He wheezed out the question.

“Nico is coaching. It’s good practice for him.” Dee nodded toward a femme young male standing with a cocked hip and twirling his longish hair with a finger. Jamie had noticed him earlier on the field where he flicked and dribbled the ball with the skill of a professional. Like so many of the athletes, he was an intriguing mix of gender cues. He might actually be a she. Or neither a he nor a she. Jamie couldn’t tell.

“You didn’t look like you were enjoying the game much. You kept looking at the ground.”

“I’m enjoying the game a great deal. Your team is losing, though, so I’m sorry about that. It’s just that this is all so curious to me. Odd. To be here and dressed like this.” Jamie extended a leg, pointing the toe and twisting so they both examined the shapely calf.

“Look around. You aren’t so different from others who are here.” Dee swept a hand to encompass everyone before them. The players and spectators and those on the opposing team. It was a mix of both genders, all genders. Some were clearly male or female but others defied the binary opposition of the terms. Two of the best players on tackle were a couple girls sporting bobbed hair and breasts pressed flat against their chests. Like with Dee, his gaze was drawn to them.

“What does it all mean? This place? How did we come to be here?” The query was plaintive.

“It means nothing.” Dee laughed and squeezed him closer. “Gender means nothing at all, really. It simply is.”

“But, that can’t be right. Gender is important. This is important.” He grabbed his cock, gave it a shake, then blushed furiously. “Sorry, that was…”

But Dee was laughing, waving off his apology.

“Of course that’s important. So is this.” She clutched her own crotch. “It’s important for pleasure. For sex. For pro-creation, if one chooses.”

The crowd around them suddenly stood, cheering loudly. Dee stood as well and drew Jamie up with her. Blaine had managed to strike one into the net, bringing the score a little closer. He was loping back their way now, smiling widely. He grabbed a water bottle as he came off the field and drew to a stop a few feet in front of Jamie where he delivered a deep, courtly bow.

Jamie blushed.

“Hope you liked that. It may be the only one you get. The other team is really good.”

“All the more reason for you to stay on the field. And let’s not forget that you have some responsibilities to that other team.”

Jamie wondered at Dee’s obscure remark while Blain shook his head good-naturedly.

“C’mon, now. Don’t be curt. I can see you’ve won the girl.” Blaine’s eyes darted to Jamie and back to his friend.

“Looks like you owe me one.” Blaine delivered the words with a grin and backed away, heading toward the field.

“Meet us after the game. I’m thinking in the East Side room!” Dee hollered the words at him and he lifted a hand in acknowledgment.

“I should really get you started on your spa experience.” She pressed Jamie’s hand then lifted two fingers to her lips and issued a sharp, piercing whistle. Two players broke away from the team and started towards them.

“What did Blaine mean just now? That you’d won?” Jamie’s heart pounded.

“Why, he meant that you’re my girl, of course.” Dee adjusted her jacket again over Jamie’s shoulders, drawing the sides close together. Under the jacket, she placed a hand on his waist. Her thumb traced a bottom rib. There was nothing overtly sexual about the touch, but Jamie’s body responded nonetheless. She continued talking. “Can you do that, Jamie? Give your boy side a rest and be my girl while you’re here?”

Jamie was stiff a very ungirl-like way. He nodded, once again lacking air to speak. He resisted the urge to press into her hand, wishing it would travel up and palm a breast he didn’t have.

The two players drew alongside them, both undoubtedly girls. They had sweet faces and looked expectantly at their coach.

“Maia, Dawn. This is Jamie,” She lay a hand on Jamie’s lower back and pressed him forward as she made the introductions. “She’s going to be getting some spa treatments this afternoon. Have her freshen up and then see Fitz for hair and cosmetics. I’ll be along as soon as the game is over.”

“Oh, perfect! Fitz is doing our hair this afternoon as well.” Dawn welcomed Jamie as the two girls stood on either side of him and linked arms. “We’ll take her along.”

“Any special requests for Fitz?” Maia inquired of Dee.

“Flapper. A Daisy Buchanan look. She should be floating, light as air.”

Jamie was drawn away from the crowded playing field by Maia and Dawn. They skipped along a path to a campus of low buildings. Spanish roofs unfurled below a rolling, grassy hill. The first stop were the showers, a long row of individual cubicles with the white sterility of a hospital.

Maia draped a large bath sheet over his shoulder, pressed a folded terry cloth robe into his hands and dropped a heart shaped pellet of soap and some disposable razors on top. “Make yourself as smooth as possible. It will give you more options when it comes to choosing clothes. Leave your clothes hanging on the hooks in the shower cube, put the robe on and meet us out here.”

Jamie avoided analyzing what he was doing; he simply set himself to the tasks at hand. When he emerged from the cube, dressed as instructed in the robe of lightweight terry cloth, Maia and Dawn were waiting for him. Like his, their robes were short, coming down only to mid thigh.

“The salon is just down the hall.” He followed the two girls, the thong sandals that had been wrapped in the robe tapping softly on the floor.

A tall, gaunt looking man, sporting a short fringe around his bald head beckoned the three of them into his salon. Maia and Dawn greeted him familiarly, confirming this was, indeed, Fitz. In less than a moment, Jamie found himself seated in a comfortable chair before a large mirror.

“Shouldn’t be hard at all to do something with this. Gorgeous hair. Thick, but manageable.”
Fitz pulled at strands of hair, examining them as a sculptor would a lump of clay. “So you’re the other half, eh?”

“Pardon?”

“You’re Trisha’s husband, right? She was in this morning.”

“Oh, right” Jamie waited for the pang of guilt, the tightening anxiety, he’d come to associate with thoughts of his wife. They arrived but were quickly muted by Fitz’s next words.

“She went for the ‘extreme makeover’ option. You must have seen her at the game. What did you think?”

“We must have missed each other.” He mumbled the words, startled to realize he’d barely thought about Trisha since Blaine had dragged him into the changing tent. He would have to trust that she was embracing her own adventure. Still, it did seem odd now that he thought about it. The hockey game had been her idea, hadn’t it?

“Well, you’re in for a surprise later on. It was quite genius, what I did with her hair this morning. Now I must see if I can do something equally inspired with you.”

“Nothing too drastic. I need something conservative when it comes to hair. All of this really.” Jamie frowned at himself in the mirror thinking now about Trisha’s reaction when she saw him. Suddenly his newly shaved legs felt very exposed.

“Leave it to me. I know just what you need.”

“Fitz is a god when it comes to hair.”

There’s now one you can trust more.”

The three comments came in a rush from Fitz, Maia and Dawn who were seated in the salon chairs on either side of him.

“Trisha, Blaine and I had a good chat this morning. You’ll be the perfect match for Trisha when I’m done with you.”

“What do you think Trisha needs?”

“A good girlfriend.” Fitz spun him away from the mirror and Jamie’s thoughts swirled with it. Trisha had lots of girlfriends. The hairdresser was no help in offering insight to his wife.

Fitz pushed his head forward so that Jamie was staring down at his lap. One of his assistants dropped a couple of fashion magazines into it. He caught them before they slid off the slick surface of the sheet draped over his robe.

“Good thing you brought your own girlfriends with you.” Maia spoke off to his right then reached across and plucked one of the magazines from his lap. “This one’s actually a catalogue of the resort wear offered here. Let’s see if we can find something good.”

Glasses of champagne and refreshments appeared within arms reach. Jamie was distracted from the snipping, the wet pieces of hair falling from Fitz’s scissors onto the floor, by the chattering conversation of Maia and Dawn. Other stylists appeared to dress the hair of his new companions.

Still more assistants arrived, the very perfection of androgyny, right down to their voices, and went to work on manicures and pedicures as Fitz went off to mix up hair color. Dawn, Jamie and Maia sipped their champagne and flicked through magazines and commented on the models and whether she looked good in her clothes.

A memory rose from early childhood of accompanying his mother to salons like this. He would be left waiting in the reception area with the books and toys she had packed for him. The women in the salon would oooh and ahh over him, tell him how cute he was. But they never invited him to crawl into one of the chairs. The girls his age who came with their mothers often were allowed to pick a nail color, or get their lips lightly dabbed a frosty pink. The same invitation was never extended to him and he’d secretly envied those girls with the bubble gum lips.

“Here’s one for you Jamie. You could pull this off. You’d be all leg. Dee would swoon to see you in this. Maybe Blaine too.” Dawn passed a magazine over.

The model was sporting a coat dress, but made from lightweight fabric, not a heavy winter material. Short-sleeved with a notched collar, the dress buttoned straight down the front. The waistline was low, on the hips. The buttons disappeared into a very short skirt with accordion pleats. The overall look was tailored, but the pleated skirt would give it some movement.

“Yes, I think I could wear this.” Jamie had been prepared to protest looking good in anything. Gazing at the picture, though, s/he realized s/he would look good in the outfit.

“It will show off all your best assets,” Maia assured Jamie. “Your legs. That long neck. I bet your dates are always nuzzled up to you. You must have been covered in hickies as a teen-ager.”

Jamie stammered. Blushed again. “Not really.”

“OK, a quick blow dry and we send you over to make-up.” Fitz drew the hot air gun out of its holster and made quick work of drying the hair. Strands blew across Jamie’s cheeks. The longer, heavier hair pulled at his scalp in a subtle way that was not unpleasant. When he was done, Fitz spun the chair back around. Jaime was presented with a head of softly tousled wisps. They were artfully untamed, softening his features. The brown hair had been highlighted, honeyed.

She is pretty. He thought. I’m pretty.

It was like looking at his twin sister, if he’d had one. Only it was him, her. In the mirror was the girl who’d been with him so many years. It was himself, his other self, herself. That’s me.