Chapter 4

Friday, October 30, 1998

Even though Vicky had volunteered to be the designated driver for the evening of the party, to no one's great surprise the number of people going from around the Bradford area quickly outgrew a single car. The same night Kevin showed up at Jason's house with a pile of motorcycle parts Vicky asked Jason if he knew anyone with a big van they could use instead. Jason did, a guy from the plant whose hobby seemed to be a dozen kids, and who needed an extended-body full-size van to haul them around. Borrowing it for a night turned out to be no big deal.

Vicky was driving when they pulled up to Kevin and Emily's, the first stop of several pickups. She'd never driven anything that big before, and they both decided she needed some practice while there was still a hint of light so she'd be a little more comfortable driving back in the dark, most likely with a load of drunks. As she drove here and there to pick up the rest of the passengers, there was a pretty good load that climbed aboard, mostly in costume, which turned out to be better than Jason had expected. True to his word, he wasn't exactly in drag, although he'd done the next best, if expected thing -- he was in a full-house dress great kilt, with all the stops pulled out -- sash, sporran, a dirk of course, wristlets with throwing knives, tam-o-shanter, and some other details he usually didn't bother with. What made it a little special was that he'd collected a lot of that sort of garb over the years, enough to outfit Vicky in the same way. Technically -- and only technically -- she was the one in drag, since traditional Scotswomen didn't wear kilts and the other regalia in the old days, although it was common now in festivals and gatherings.

Jason and Vicky weren't the only ones not exactly in drag. Dayna and Sandy had taken the long way from Kentucky to Louisiana to come to Bradford on an off weekend for the party. The two had a reputation for knowing a lot of dirty songs, some really dirty. Kevin, Emily, Vicky, Scott and Sonja, and a couple others had heard Dayna do some of them around night camps at renaissance faires a few years before, but the two had more or less agreed to avoid the dirtiest stuff in Bradford. In another piece of precision arm twisting, Emily had gotten them to promise to do a few of them at the party once they had a few drinks in them for inspiration. After all, it wasn't in Bradford. The tall, dark-haired, slender Dayna and the slightly shorter and solider blonde Sandy were wearing striped stockings that didn't reach all the way up to their short black skirts, garter straps showing, matching wide-striped tank tops, broad-brimmed black hats, and about half the makeup that Tammy Faye Bakker would have used for just lying around the house. The effect was intentionally "cheap street hooker," and they looked the part. They both carried their guitars, of course -- they often said they rarely went to the bathroom without them.

The rest were a little more dressed in the theme of the party. Kevin was dressed in a conservative woman's business suit, with a ruffled blouse and conservative hemline; he looked more butch than Dayna and Sandy were reported to be. Emily was in a man's business suit and tie, her breasts less prominent than normal -- either she wasn't wearing a bra or had bound them, possibly both -- Jason wasn't about to ask. Mike Austin had on a simple blouse and brown skirt, really not too far out. He had long hair anyway, but it had been done up a bit, and he was wearing women's glasses. Liz was wearing a clown outfit; like Jason's kilts, it was a bit of a hobby, and, as she explained, "It's a hell of a lot harder for a woman to dress in something that looks uniquely male, but that ain't true the other way around." Keith Gritzmaker had on a housedress and a long dark wig; the rather heavyset and muscular Dean Sallows had on a miniskirt that was about as radical as Dayna and Sandy's, and was decked out a little hooker style like them, as well. Like Jason, Vicky, and Liz, their wives had on outfits that were out of the ordinary but at least more or less unisex.

"Jeez," Vicky said as the Gritzmakers, the last to be picked up, found seats. "This looks like a Halloween party looking for a place to happen."

"Aye, lassie," Jason grinned. "Could be 'cause 'tis."

It's about an hour and a half from Bradford to Mason. Vicky kept it under the speed limit -- this van load of crazies could be hard to explain to a traffic cop, after all -- and it was fully dark before they got to Aaron and Amber's house. None of them had ever been there before, but the directions Vicky had been given were good and she drove right to it.

The place was really decked out for Halloween, with jack-o'-lanterns and all sorts of weird All Hallows Eve decorations. Amber had taken the day off to work on it, and Sonja had helped -- she had a job where she could work at home, doing technical editing and website construction on her computer, so that made her schedule a little flexible.

Sonja was wearing her elaborate and expensive belly-dancer's outfit, as she'd promised; it was actually rather modest, except for the bare belly, but it was covered with elaborate bangles, bells, and other devices, and she literally jingled when she walked. She was no belly dancer, but had picked up a few moves just to show the outfit off. She and Scott had bought it at a renaissance faire years before, and she rarely got to wear it, although with her dark skin and partly Middle-Eastern background she really looked the part.

Aaron proved to be wearing a black cocktail dress with a fairly high neckline, a string of cultured pearls, and long red hair halfway down the back. Scott, though, was a knockout, a virtual image of Vanna White -- he was wearing a blonde wig and a long blue sequined dress that seemed to be made of so much froth; it was very low cut, and there was more than a hint of cleavage. Jason wondered just how that had been done.

Amber had invited a neighbor couple to come over and handle the grill and some of the food items, so that gave her and Sonja and Liz time to hang out with everyone else. Whatever was grilling outside the sliding doors of the patio smelled mighty exotic. Jason knew what it was, and suspected everyone else did, too. Back at the breakfast at the Chicago Inn, before he and Vicky had shown up, Aaron had been teasing Sonja a little and suggested that with her Middle-Eastern heritage, if she did the food she'd be likely to show up with roast goat shish kebabs. "Hey, that's good," she wisecracked right back. "Especially if I use my grandmother's special sauce." Aaron had tried to shrug it off, but a few minutes later when it was revealed that Mike and Liz raised goats on their hobby farm and had all the meat she'd need in the freezer the deed was done.

"Sonja is a nice woman," Scott explained as the exotic smell drifted into the room. "In fact, about my ideal of a woman. But every once in a while she can reach back into odd places in her heritage and make me wonder just who the hell it was I married."

"Och, now," Jason replied. "'And this night is showin' all the signs, 'tisn't it? I hae to say, laddie, yon goat smells pretty good."

"I just hope it tastes as good as it smells," Scott shrugged. "As far as I know Sonja has never actually roasted a goat, at least since we've been married. She wound up having to call her mother in Israel to get the recipe for the sauce. She couldn't get it directly from her grandmother since they don't share a language."

"It ought to work out all right," Mike commented. "Roast goat is actually pretty good."

"Yeah, but Sonja's mother is involved, so you're never quite sure," he shrugged. "I really hope it works out all right. I sure as hell would hate to have to go to the emergency room dressed like Vanna White, even on Halloween."

There was a punch bowl in the center of the room -- well, not actually a punch bowl, but a black iron cauldron, literally frothing. "Jesus, witch's brew, yeah," he heard Kevin comment. "Jason, that makes me think of a quenching bath in your shop."

"Just a little dry ice for effect," Aaron explained, handing Jason a glass of the blood-red liquid. "It's actually pretty good."

Jason took a sniff and shook his head. "Laddie, don't be usin' yon witch's brew as yer quenchin' bath for yer red-hot blade lest ye burn the house down. Honest Highland single malt it's nae."

"There's a little Everclear in there," Aaron admitted. "Well, more than a little."

"I don't think I ever heard of that," Kevin admitted.

"It's 190-proof grain alcohol," Scott snorted. "You don't find it in decent liquor stores; you have to go down on skid row some place."

"Roast goat, Everclear punch and a cross-dressing Vanna White look alike," Kevin shook his head as he poured a glass. "Shit, they're never gonna believe this down at the shop. I'm not sure I believe it now."

"I suspect a couple 'a wee drams of yon witch's potion and ye'll not hae to believe it," Jason shook his head. "But tha' idea was for the night bein' intoxicatin' so we might's well be gettin' intoxicated."

Everyone was just a little leery of the punch, but most agreed it tasted pretty good, and after a round or two people were starting to get loosened up a little. Sometime later, Vicky and Jason were talking with Kevin and Aaron near the front door while the smell of roasting goat got stronger. "Vicky, is that a real dagger in your belt?" Aaron asked.

"It's a dirk, not a dagger," she said, drawing it and handing it to him so he could have a look at it. "In fact, it's the dirk Jason helped me make while I was still in high school. And it's so real that Augie is damn lucky I didn't use it on him. I came damn close when he beat me up the last time."

"Looks pretty good," Kevin said. "I hope I can do work like that."

"It's verra good for a first try," Jason told him. "I dinna help her much ither, tho' I told her wha' ta' do." He pulled the dirk from his own belt for comparison. "I made this, och, four-five years ago."

"Yours looks better," Aaron nodded. "But then, it has every right to. But at least to my untrained eye, Vicky's isn't that far behind."

"Nae, 'tis not," Jason smiled as he slipped his dirk back in its sheath. "The lassie kin take lots a' pride in her first try. My first blade hangs on my livin' room wall, an' 'tis nae as pretty as hers."

"Vicky, do you still make knives?" Aaron asked as he handed the dirk back to her.

"That's the only one I've ever made start to finish, but I occasionally go over and help Jason out with some things," she shrugged as she put the blade back in the sheath.

"She hae a fine hand wi' tha' engravin' an' scrimshaw," Jason explained. "Might be better than mine ae' times."

Just then the doorbell went off. "Late arrival, I guess," Aaron said, and turned toward the door.

Emily brushed past him with the words. "I think that's who I've been waiting for." Aaron shrugged, and let her do it. She opened the door, and talked with the person outside for a moment, then walked back into the room, put her fingers into her mouth, and let go of a shrill whistle. "Everybody, listen," she said. "I've got a special surprise that even Sonja and Amber don't know about. Right after the Tylers and the Heislers cooked up the idea of this party, Sonja and Amber told me they didn't have any idea who could judge the contest for the most realistic costume. I told them I knew someone who would be in Detroit this evening and I thought I could get them to come over here to Lansing. Ladies and gentlemen, and I use the words in the broadest possible terms; I'd like to bring in our judge."

She opened the door, and a small person entered the room, wearing baggy blue jeans, a loose 'Rensselaer Poly' sweatshirt, and a brown baseball cap. There were jaws that hit the floor -- their visitor was Eve McClellan, but dressed more or less like the Denis Riley they remembered she had once been! Jason didn't recognize her at first, and only put two and two together from the circumstances before the recognition snapped into place. Yes, there was more than a mild hint of Denis in that beautiful young woman.

"Thank you, sir," Eve -- well, just at this instant, Denis -- replied with a smile, and a voice that was a little lower than those at the reunion remembered from three weeks before, a little more like they remembered from Denis. "It sort of looks like I've wandered into wonderland tonight. Emily, I called you 'sir' just now because one of the first rules of etiquette I learned when I got on the road to becoming a woman was you always address people in the gender they're presenting."

"Thank you, sir," Emily grinned back. "Can you stay long enough for dinner? I think it's pretty close to ready."

"I can hang around for two or three hours," "Denis" replied. "But I've got to get back to Detroit tonight, since I've got a presentation to give tomorrow morning. I'll have one drink, and only one, since I'll have to drive later." "He" let out a sigh. "And I think I'll have that drink right now, since this is the first time I've tried to dress as Denis in over ten years, and it's proving harder than I thought."

"Coming right up," Amber said, from over near the punchbowl.

"How do you want to do the judging?" Emily asked.

"Why don't I just circulate for a while, talk with people and check out the ladies? Then, after a while, I'll make some comments on the costuming and announce the winners. Would that work?"

"Whatever you want," Emily grinned. "You have to know more about this than the rest of us."

"Not that I'm an expert," "Denis" grinned, as Amber handed him a glass of punch. "I really only cross-dressed for a couple years, and that was ten years ago. Now, you want an expert, you have to go to someone like Carl Buttery down at Dress to Desire, a specialty cross-dressing clothing shop in Chicago, from whom I learned most of what I know. He forgot more thirty years ago than I'll ever know. On the other hand, I do have a little perspective that he doesn't."

"Thank you for coming," Amber piped up. "And while we've got everyone's attention, we'll start serving out on the porch. I'm afraid this is going to have to be a stand-up meal. Sir," she added, turning to "Denis". "As our honored guest, would you like to be the first in line? After that, I think we'd better go 'ladies first.'"

Several minutes later, Jason and Vicky were standing in one corner of the enclosed porch, struggling to hold a plate in one hand and eat with the other, not mess up their makeup, and talk with "Denis;" Scott, Sonja, Aaron and Amber were there, too. "Eve," Scott said. "I'd like to say for all of us that we really appreciate you coming. We were the ones who cooked up the idea of this party, but I want you to understand there was never any intention on any of our parts of mocking you with it. We did enough of that in high school through our stupidity, and we don't want you to think we're doing it again."

"If I thought you were, I wouldn't have come," Eve/Denis replied simply and soberly.

"You did get us curious, I have to say that," Aaron added. "Otherwise we probably wouldn't have thought of doing this. It, well, gives us a little chance to peek over the fence without it really meaning anything."