The next Saturday Marcia was over at my place where I was taping her latest CD purchases and she did it again. "You know, Chris, you're going to have to get your hair cut soon, it's starting to frizz at the ends and pretty soon it'll be as long as mine" "Yeah, right" I said dismissively. My mom cut my hair the last time for my cousin Beth's wedding cause she couldn't afford to send me to someone, and she did such a terrible job I had vowed never to let her do it again. Because of the bad cut in the first place it was pretty much a shaggy mess eight months later, and did need a trim, but there wasn't much we could do about it short of me putting myself at her mercy again. I was taking a bit of ribbing at school about looking like Cousin It. "Why don't you get it cut?" she asked. "Well, if you must know, it's because I can't afford it." I said. "Oh, sorry, I didn't realise things were that bad." "It's okay, forget it". "Sorry. It's just that you've actually got really beautiful hair, it would look great if you tidied it up a little", Marcia said. Then, with that same look she'd given me the week before, she said "Why don't you let me cut it?" "Thanks, but no thanks. You'll do a worse job than my mom did" I snorted. "Well, I wouldn't have to take much off it, you know, not a proper cut or style or anything, just even it up and take off the split ends and stuff". I obviously still looked doubtful, because she continued. "I did my friend Joanie's a few weeks ago, you know it was just a matter of about a centimetre off in a straight line at the back, it was easy". For some insane reason I suddenly thought "what the hell". I mean, I was eventually going to get it cut a lot shorter anyway, so if she just cut it a little I figured I could have any mistakes she made cut out later. And if she really screwed it up my mom would have to send me to a professional rather than risk making it worse herself. Which would be okay, I was kind of ready for short hair again. Life had been kind of boring lately, so taking a small risk like that seemed okay. "Just even the ends up, right?" I said. "Yes, I promise". Pretty soon I was sitting on a stool in her bathroom. Her brother Rob was out with his new girlfriend, Tania, and Marcia's folks were off shopping for a new car, so we had the place to ourselves. I sat there waiting for her to begin. "Take off your shirt", Marcia said. "Why? You're cutting the hair on my head, right, not my chest!" I spluttered. "You don't have any hair on your chest", she said. I blushed, and she said apologetically "It's to stop the hair getting caught on your shirt and making you itch. I'll get a t-shirt for you if you're worried about getting cold, you can wear that instead and I'll just wash it when we're done". She left and came back in with a t-shirt. I took off my shirt and pulled the one Marcia gave me over my head. It was one of those scoop-neck things with short capped sleeves, obviously a girl's top instead of a proper t-shirt. "Very funny", I said. I guess one of Rob's was out of the question?" It did look pretty silly, and Marcia grinned. "I don't go into Rob's room unless I have too, he's funny about it. It's okay, it's only for a while". She straightened my head so I faced her and said "Anyway, you look kind of cute". "Don't push your luck", I said. Marcia combed my hair out and began trimming the ends. At first I couldn't see what she was doing because of the hair hanging over my eyes, but it didn't seem like she was cutting very much. Then she started spending a lot of time on the bits hanging around my face. Finally she finished and stood back. I turned, and saw past her to the mirror. Oh god, she'd given me bangs! "That looks better", she said, obviously unaware that I could see what it looked like. "Yeah, if I was aiming to look like Angela McKinnon", I snorted. Angela was a girl at school who was so Laura Ashley it was nauseating. "You'll have to cut the rest of it now". I looked at the mirror again. It was kind of weird, actually. I looked a lot like a younger version of my mom. I'd never noticed that before. "What do you mean?", said Marcia, in what I assumed was an attempt at innocence. "It's a girl's cut, Marcia. Cut the sides a bit and it won't look so bad". I started to reach for the scissors but she pulled them away. "Well, I like it" Marcia smiled, as though assessing my hair for the first time. "Do me a favour, will you?" "What? I'm not going anywhere or anything, okay. Not until you fix this". "No, nothing like that. But you should wash it. I'll finish cutting it, but I'd just like to have some fun with it first, okay?" She had her best winning smile coming up, I could see the beginnings of it. "Fun?" I said suspiciously. "Oh, come on, it'll be great. Let me see how this can look". What the hell. I went and took a quick shower and washed my hair as per Marcia's instructions. She handed me a bottle of conditioner with strict instructions that I was to leave it on for at least ten minutes before rinsing and applying a second conditioner. The stuff stank but I left it on as she asked. As I was drying myself off Marcia knocked on the door and handed me a robe to wear, something fluffy and white. The sleeves came down over my hands, but it felt great to wear. I came out and sat at her dressing table while she went to work. After a bunch of gunk went into my hair she started to dry it, working it with her fingers, then began to use a curling iron to wrap it into really big curls. Halfway through she saw me looking at what she was doing in the mirror, so she grabbed the towel I had used and draped it across the mirror so I couldn't see. Before she got to drying off the hair over my eyes she stopped and pinned it back, and then I saw her coming at me with a pair of tweezers. "No way", I squeaked. "It'll look completely natural, I promise. I'm just going to tidy them up a tiny bit. You don't want to look like a monobrow, do you?" That was carrying things a bit far. My eyebrows hadn't thickened at all yet, in fact I think they were finer than hers. But as she bent over me I got a good view down the front of her shirt, and a whiff of her smell, a clean, sweet smell from whatever soap she used, and I succumbed. I didn't usually think of Marcia in a really sexual way, but all this attention from her was starting to have an effect on me. And it was all a little bit kinky, too, I thought, as I felt her tug at a few eyebrow hairs. I'd worn women's clothes before, when I was younger as a kind of joke when we got into the dress-up bin at school, but I'd never tried to look like a woman. As Marcia surveyed the results of her handiwork and went back to drying off my hair I began to wonder why it was that I wasn't objecting quite so much to what she was doing. Did this mean I was weird, or what? She finished with my hair and stepped back to admire her work. I started to get up to reach for the towel and pull it from the mirror, but she put her hand on my shoulder and pushed me back down. "Unh Unh" she said. "Not until I've finished". "Aw, come on Marcia". "Don't spoil it. It won't kill you to do this once. Besides, I think you like it". I didn't say anything. She was right, and I couldn't lie to her, but I didn't want to admit it. I was starting to feel really weird. If this didn't mean I was queer, did it mean I was developing a crush on Marcia? I liked her and all that, but... She brushed some pinkish-brown powder over my face, applied a little eyeliner and mascara, then finally got me to purse my lips so she could put some lipstick on me. "Ta da!" Marcia said, pulling the towel from the mirror. I was shocked. I had expected to see me in makeup, but that wasn't how things looked at all. I looked like someone else. I looked older, but I looked like a girl. Like a young woman. A lot like my mom in the photo of her and Dad when they started dating that was still on the bookshelf in the living room at home. "Pretty good, huh?", said Marcia. I was still reeling. My head was framed in a mass of hair, big curls cascading down to my shoulders. It was a lot lighter than it had been, too. Blond. Blonde. Except for the lipstick I didn't really look like I was wearing makeup at all. In fact, I looked great. In the big fluffy bathrobe I realised with something of a shock that I looked pretty. I looked like the kind of girl I'd like to date. "Uh, it's..." I really couldn't think of anything to say, and my voice trailed off. "Yeah, you look good. Better than I look in that robe." I raised my hand to my hair and patted it, then stopped, self-conscious that what I had just done was what a woman does with her hair. "I thought it needed a little lightening", said Marcia. "Will it change back?" I asked, suddenly anxious. What was I going to do at school on Monday? "Will it get darker when I wash it?" "Not really, but if we cut it again people will just notice the change in length more than the colour, so don't worry about it". I must have looked unconvinced, because she shrugged and said "Time for the rest of it". She strode over to the closet and began going through racks of clothes. "The subtle casual look", she said, as she pulled out a short black skirt and a pretty blue blouse. "Stand up", she commanded as she walked back to where I was sitting. I did as she asked. She held the clothes up to me, as if assessing my size. "You're looking kind of spacey, Chris", she said. "Lighten up" "I'm okay", I said. " I was just kind of expecting to look a little different". "Well, might as well go all the way, hey", she said, handing me the clothes. I stood there holding them stupidly as she sorted through a couple of drawers to find something else. Finally she handed me some lingerie and something else made of black nylon. "Put these on underneath". I hesitated. Finally Marcia realised that I was waiting for her to leave the room before I changed. "Oh, okay. Guess I wasn't thinking then. You really kinda look like a girl" she said. "Do you need any help with any of that?" I looked at the clothes in my hands. How complicated could they be? Marcia stepped out of the room, then poked her head round the door to ask if I'd like a soda. I said sure and she went downstairs to get some while I undressed. I took off the robe and picked up the underwear. It was just a bra and panties. I wondered briefly whether it was necessary to go to that length in this experiment, then looked at the chair on the other side of the room where I'd left my own clothes and realised that my own underwear had disappeared anyway. So I tried the panties on. They felt pretty good, actually. I was kind of surprised. I had thought maybe they'd be really uncomfortable, on account of having to hold a little extra in. They bulged a little at the front, though only a little. To make them more comfortable I adjusted myself, and tucked myself back into them. I caught another glimpse of myself in the mirror. That was too weird. I still looked like a girl, only one with absolutely no chest, like someone had taken a photo of a normal girl and then airbrushed out her breasts or something. I realised my body was still underdeveloped enough that I just looked immature rather than masculine. It was vaguely disconcerting, but somehow kind of interesting, too. Then I looked at the bra. There hardly seemed much point, really, considering it wasn't going to be supporting anything, but I put my arms through the straps and did it up. That was surprisingly easy, too, and it didn't really feel that strange. I looked at the mirror again, and noticed that the bra cups protruded just enough to give the illusion - at a casual glance - that I had breasts. I pulled on the skirt, buttoned it at the side, then did up the blouse, with some difficulty until I realised all the buttons were on the wrong side. Well, the right side for a girl's blouse, but ... Marcia came back into the room just as I was doing up the last of the buttons. "Wow", she said, handing me the soda. "That was a good choice. Blue is definitely your color". I turned back to the mirror to look. Something was not quite right. Marcia came over holding the bits of black nylon, which I recognised as stockings now, and told me to put them on. They were solid black, and only came up to mid-thigh. I'd seen the style around a lot, so I knew that was how they were supposed to look. Marcia then came back over with a couple of flesh-colored bits of nylon, and I looked at her with some puzzlement. She bent over me and began to unbutton the top of my blouse. I sat rigid, wondering what was going on, but she scrunched the nylon up into two balls and placed them in the cups of the bra. "That's better", she said. "Not great, but it'll do for now". I looked at the mirror again and saw that whatever it was that hadn't been quite right was fixed now. I should have been more wary of her words "for now", but as I looked at myself in the mirror again I wasn't thinking about too much except that I looked like someone completely different. I was a babe, there was no other way to put it. It was the strangest feeling, to be me, but to be someone I'd never met before. "Well, what do you think?", Marcia asked. "Not bad for a quick makeover!" "It's ... well, it's certainly different", I said, breaking into laughter. Marcia began to laugh, too. "If you were really a girl, I'd be jealous" she said. "As it is I think you're pretty hot!" I blushed, and looked at my feet. "Oh yeah, shoes", said Marcia. She picked out a pair of low-heeled chunky shoes and got me to try them on. "How do they fit?" Actually they fit very well, though they were slightly on the big side for me. "Try walking" said Marcia, and I did. The feeling of the skirt brushing against my legs was interesting, it made me feel very conscious of what I was wearing but it wasn't at all unpleasant. After I'd done two short trips across the room she gathered up the now empty soda cans and led me down the stairs. As we passed through the living space I was conscious that the huge windows to the street gave anyone outside a good look in at me, and I was suddenly acutely self-conscious. What if my mom looked across from our place?