Chapter 4

The next week, they started the new routine -- Tuesday and Thursday, they would have an abbreviated practice in which Lou would participate, then he would go off with one of the girls, don a bra and panties and sneakers and a pink sweatsuit and return when the sports teams had cleared out and the team would do their competition practice with Lois present. It would have been nice to be able to do things only one way, but while virtually no one went to cheerleading competitions, the teams and their parents, the band, and other fans went to football games, in particular. There would be too many people at games who would know Lou -- and not know Lois. It was confusing; some of the girls --Becky in particular -- always seemed to get his/her name wrong. Marlene just called Lou 'Honey', whether Lou was in either mode. Lou found the being Lois was as comfortable -- if not more so -- than being Lou -- and that he slipped, regularly, especially when walking. The girls took turns watching over him when he operated in male mode -- in one particularly embarrassing incident, Becky caught up to him in the halls and said -- fairly loudly, "Lois, honey, you're walking funny," -- while he was dressed out as Lou. That got some laughs. The assumption that he was probably gay anyway got reinforcement -- and there was nothing Lou could do about it.

The second week in, Ed showed up at the house on Wednesday; Lou's dad, unaware that there was a rift between them, let him in and called Lou downstairs. "Hey, Lou," Ed said sheepishly.

"Hey, Ed." Lou decided that his father didn't need to see a scene.

"Can we talk? I need to tell you something."

Lou thought about it and decided that it was worth the risk. Ed WAS his oldest friend, after all... "Sure, let's go upstairs." Lou's father, who thought it was wonderful that Lou had an honest to God jock for a friend, beamed and wandered off, and Lou led Ed upstairs.

Lou took his desk chair and Ed settled on the bed, looking hangdog. "Look, Lou -- I'm REAL sorry..." The whole thing came out in pieces; Lou was literally the only person Ed could talk to about it -- but that didn't make it easy... "Mike invited me to his place and we, well, you know... Afterwards, I couldn't handle it, you know? I mean, guys... Then we all got together that time, and Mike messed with you, and you got all upset -- and when I went to talk to him about it, he said some things... I dunno -- they made sense, in a weird way..."

"I know," Lou said tonelessly. "I heard some of them."

"He had me convinced -- I had me convinced... I'm real sorry..."

Lou nodded. Some time had passed -- and, if anything, Lou was more confused, too. "Remember what I asked you the next day?" he asked. "Has it changed?"

"No," Ed looked mournful. "I know -- but I don't know."

Lou suspected as much; Ed hadn't called him 'Man', once. Ed seldom went to the effort to call him Lou... "That's not a surprise, I guess," he muttered wryly, "Tuesdays and Thursdays I don't know, myself. But..."

"It was still wrong," Ed finished for him. Male or female, he'd been raped.

"Look, I... need a friend," Ed husked. "Mike... I can't stop..." Ed broke down at that point. Slowly, it came out; Mike had him hooked on homosexual sex. Ed thought that if he had a girlfriend -- or even just had sex with a girl -- it might break the cycle; that was sort of what impelled him to go along with Mike's mad plan to rape Lou. But now that he'd tasted the forbidden fruit, Ed couldn't just go back to beating off -- and Mike wouldn't let him, anyway. When Ed tried to exert some willpower, Mike blackmailed him; the only thing keeping him quiet was regular oral and anal sex from Ed -- and Mike was smart enough to keep Ed pacified by delivering the same. It was a downhill spiral -- and Ed had no escape. Lou ended up letting Ed cry himself out on his shoulder -- it seemed to be all he could do -- and when it was over, Lou found that he'd forgiven his friend; Ed was a mess, and he undoubtedly had been virtually since he moved into Mike's orbit. But what -- if anything -- Lou could do about it wasn't clear... Lou sent Ed home, telling him that he would think about it and try to come up with an answer -- but the blackmail thing was a hard nut to crack...

Things went on basically the same for a few days, then suddenly, the next Monday, Mike started attacking Lou in public with wisecracks and digs -- probably the worst of which was referring to him as Louise. It didn't take much at all to get the general run of Lou's classmates to believe that Lou had outed himself as gay, somehow; most of them didn't care, anyway, and they took the prevailing sentiment as gospel without tracing it to its roots. Lou figured out right away that the tactic was designed to drive a wedge between Lou and Ed -- and it was effective, to a certain extent; Ed was more or less compelled to shun Lou in public. But Ed went out of his way to ensure that Lou wasn't shunned in private -- which brought about new issues...

The issue got discussed fairly quickly inside the team. "Well, are you?" Marlene asked Lou.

"Am I what?"

"Gay."

Lou -- Lois, at this point, since it was a late practice -- sat for a long time before answering. "It's not that simple..." she muttered.

"No?" Marlene cocked her head. "Come on, Honey -- out with it."

"I'm pretty sure I'm... not normal," Lou confided. "I'm not... gifted... sexually, for one thing. For another -- well, I'm here, like this..."

"Playing dress-up?" Kitty giggled.

"Is it?" Lou replied. "Or is this me?"

Becky opened her mouth -- and closed it before saying anything. Marlene cocked her head. "Is this thing getting to you?"

"Sometimes, I think that Lou is 'this thing'," Lois confided. "This... I'm so much more comfortable. I'm... accepted... like this. I'm not accepted as Lou -- not even by me." He/she scuffed a sneaker on the gym floor. "Looking back, I think it's why I wanted to be a cheerleader -- I wanted to be one of the girls..."

"What's 'not gifted sexually' mean?" Becky asked. Lois held up her thumb and forefinger, measuring maybe three inches between them. Becky snorted, then controlled herself, "Oh, dear..."

"There's so much to it," Lois whispered. "Except for a little spot about this size," she held up her hands with the thumbs and forefingers touching, making an 'O' about four inches in diameter, "I'm all girl -- and that area is so unimpressive that it might as well be, too..."

Marlene bit her lip and nodded. "So we're back to that. Well, you make a better girl that some of the creatures we've got stalking the hallways," she muttered. "Are you thinking about getting serious about it?"

"Yeah," Lois admitted. "A lot."

"What would your folks say?"

"Dad would shit a brick," Lois muttered glumly. "I'd be on the street, probably."

"So you'd be a what?" Becky asked. "A transvestite?"

"I don't know," Lois replied. "There seem to be so many definitions. I... just want to be a girl. When you see TVs in porn, they look like a girl, but generally, they have nine inches of... meat. That doesn't describe me. I don't want to... fuck guys. I don't think I CAN fuck ANYBODY!"

"Ouch..." Marlene muttered. "Maybe we should take a litmus test. Have you ever..."

Lois just waited.

"You know," Marlene got up the courage. "Sucked a guy?"

"Once," Lois related. "I was raped, more or less."

"More or less?" Marlene pressed.

"More, actually."

"And?"

"I don't know what you want me to say," Lois replied. "It didn't kill me -- but then it wouldn't, anyway, would it?"

"Honey, I'm just trying to see..." Marlene whined. "What about the other thing?"

"Which other thing?"

"Anal sex."

Lois sighed. "Once -- same circumstances. Same incident, actually. I got pinned, sort of."

"Omigawd!" Becky husked.

"Come on, Honey -- you're not answering the important questions," Marlene pressed.

"Have you?" Lois countered. "Either thing? I mean, do you realize what you're asking?"

Marlene bit her lip. "I'm TRYING to help..."

"I think I might like it if it wasn't forced on me -- okay?" Lois rasped.

"Okay, that's fair," Marlene placated. "Have you ever been sucked?"

"Have you ever been eaten out?" Lois retorted.

"Okay, yeah, I have," Marlene admitted. "And maybe I've even touched a dick or two!"

Lois shrugged, embarrassed. "Yeah. It was good -- but you'd expect that."

"What do you think of gay porn?" Kitty asked.

"Who said I'd seen any?" Lois snarled, then got a grip. "It kind of leaves me. Guys are hot, but guys on guys -- I can't seem to get into it."

"So..." Marlene mused. She looked thoughtful and glanced around a bit. "I've seen videos of guys, you know, masturbating. What would you think of that?"

"That might be hot," Lois admitted.

"When you watch porn, do the girls turn you on?" Kitty asked.

"Well, if they're excited, it's kind of cool to think about how they feel..."

"What was that?" Marlene blinked.

"You know," Lois muttered. "What feels good to them -- do they like being pounded like that? Are they really orgasming, or are they faking it? Do they really like anal sex? Sometimes, from their expressions, you can't tell if they love sex or hate it..."

"What about the guys?" Kitty asked.

"They're amazing, generally. So... strong..."

Marlene was very quiet. "What's wrong?" Lois asked.

"I think you're on to something. What about lesbian sex?"

"It can be really interesting... hot... So much more gentle..."

Marlene glanced at Kitty, then at Becky, and finally at Emmylou. "You really need more clothes, Honey, if you're gonna step out as a woman..."

"So..." Lois blinked.

"You pass," Marlene told her. "You're a girl. We just won't make it public."

"Yeah, good plan," Lois giggled, embarrassed. The giggle got a series of glances among the other girls -- then they burst out, too.

Ed came to practice Thursday night -- the late one. The gym wasn't closed; Coach couldn't really do that. Generally, it didn't matter...

Lois nearly fell when her eye lit on Ed, sitting up high in the stands. "Omigawd!"

The girls all stopped -- and clustered. Coach came in, too. "What's up?"

"That's Ed -- Ed Powers. He's my best friend," Lois whispered. "He's here looking for Lou..."

"Oh," Coach mulled this. "How bad is it, do you think?"

"Either he's wondering why I'm not here, or he knows, by now," Lois whispered. "God..." Her hair was up in a ponytail -- maybe that was enough, but... She was made up, too, gently -- just lip-gloss, eyeliner, and a little foundation -- nothing fancy. "Does anybody know how long... ?" There was a general shaking of heads.

Coach decided to take the bull by the horns. "Mr. Powers? Would you come down here, please?"

Ed came down the bleachers, slowly. "Yeah, Coach?"

"This is a more or less closed practice," Coach pressed. "May I ask why you're here?"

"I'm looking for Lou..." Lois made a point of looking elsewhere, so her face wouldn't show; tying a shoe seemed to be a good idea.

"I'm looking for Lou," Ed muttered.

"This is the competition team," Coach said primly. "Unfortunately, Lou isn't on it, since it needs to be all-girl. But he's probably around here somewhere -- he comes out to help."

"Yeah, okay. Mind if I look for him?"

"Don't disturb anyone," Coach told him, figuring that telling him no would just cause more problems.

"Thanks. I'll just check the lockers -- some of the guys..." He shrugged. That Lou was persecuted -- and that it had gotten worse as his supposed sexual orientation got out -- was common knowledge.

"Good idea," Coach nodded.

Ed moved off. Lois turned to watch him leave -- and Ed spun suddenly and looked her full in the face. Then he turned and continued on to the boy's lockers.

"Whew! THAT was close!" Marlene yelped.

Lois was silent -- she didn't think it was over.

The rest of practice stunk. Lois couldn't concentrate and the others were rattled, too, despite the fact that Ed had apparently gone on his way. Becky sneaked Lois out the side door and took her to Becky's place for the changeover, then dropped Lou a couple of blocks from home.

It didn't work; Ed materialized out of the evening shadows at the foot of Lou's block. "I looked for you at practice..."

"You wouldn't have seen me on the floor," Lou stammered desperately, "I was..."