Chapter 20
Lando
Harry and I communicate almost exclusively through WhatsApp or IG messenger, so when I rang him on Tuesday, unsurprisingly he’d answered the phone with, “What the fuck?”
“Is that any way to speak to the love of your life?” I’d responded.
“Why are you ringing me like an old person?”
I didn’t bother answering him. “What are you doing on Friday?”
“Halloween?”
“Yes.”
“Nothing?” A question. “Why?”
“How do you feel about fancy dress?” I’d said.
“Um . . . I’m not totally opposed, I guess, but I don’t have a costume.”
“Okay, let me be real for a sec. Every year Mr B throws a big charity Halloween party in the pub, and there are prizes for the best dressed, and there’s bobbing for apples, and a scare-house, and all sorts.
Daisy and I usually dress up together, but she’s just informed me that she and Serasi are planning their own couple’s costumes, and listen, I need you to wear Daisy’s dress because my outfit won’t make sense without it. ”
He was quiet for so long.
“Hello, are you still there?”
“Did you say dress? Daisy’s dress?”
“Yeah . . . Second question: how do you feel about cross-dressing?”
The fucker had hung up on me.
Now he’s standing in my closet staring at the mannequin clothed in what will be his Halloween costume.
A back-to-front white silky blouse and a pair of black trousers with a fake ass in the front are draped on my dummy, and a long-sleeved, floor-length red dress with an optical illusion hole in the tummy hangs on Harry’s. We’re going to be Madeline Ashton and Helen Sharp from Death Becomes Her.
So long as I can convince him to don the frock.
“I made it for Daze, but it’ll fit you,” I say, nudging him closer.
“Daisy and I are not the same size.”
“You’re about the same height.” They’re really not. “The dress will stretch. It’s mostly spandex.”
“And you’re wearing this? At least you’ve got trousers and a shirt.”
“It’s a blouse,” I correct. “And I’m still going to be a woman. We both have heels and wigs.”
“Heels, Orlando Reginald? Wigs?” he says, pleading.
I can’t say I’m not relishing his discomfort. “Ven vill you vear vigs?!” I yell at him.
Harry punches me hard in the arm. “You know that Dominic Monaghan interview is my weakness. Fine, okay, whatever, but you gotta help me get in this thing, then.”
I remove the garment from the dummy as Harry strips off.
“You might have to take your undies off,” I tell him. “The waistband is too thick. It’s going to spoil the lines of the dress.”
“I can’t go commando under a dress! What if I fall over? What if someone looks up my skirt?”
“First of all, it goes to the floor, so it’s unlikely that either of those things will happen. Second of all, Scottish guys always hang free under their kilts, and you’re ginger. You’re practically an honorary Scot.”
Once we get the gown on him, however, I realise that wearing no pants under a Lycra bodycon is not the best idea. There seems to be a slight protrusion right in the centre of the dress.
“Damn, this is giving better dick outline than grey sweatpants,” he says, turning this way and that in front of the full-length mirrors in the corridor leading into my closet.
“It’s certainly . . . eye-catching,” I reply.
We hoick the dress up over his waist and pull his original underpants back on, but Harry’s upset with the disruptive chunky lines of the waistband and I feel like this is all my influence.
Eventually we find a jockstrap I wore to the community match a few months ago.
The elastic isn’t too thick, and although it doesn’t hide Harry’s bulge entirely, it smooths it out a little, and frankly it’s the best we can do without tucking, which he’s very vehemently against.
“They’re size nine, is that okay?” I say, holding out a pair of gorgeous red heeled pumps for Harry’s approval.
He takes them from me with a defeated sigh.
I understand this to mean, “Yes, Lando, this is the correct size. Thank you so much for going to all the trouble of hunting down a pair of red shoes that fit me at such short notice. Also, Daisy’s such an A-hole for saying no to this wonderful costume idea. ”
“You practise walking in them,” I tell him. “I’m going to get dressed.”
While I pull off my everyday clothes, Harry marches up and down my mirrored corridor.
He’s awful at first, truly appalling, and can barely stand upright without rolling his ankles.
But after a few attempts, and a few aggressively shouted encouragements from me—“Heel, toe, heel toe. Imagine you’re walking on a tightrope.
You’re a model, Harry. Stomp that fucking runway! ”—he starts to improve.
“You shaved your legs?” he says, teetering over to me, arms held out either side of him. “You’re wearing trousers. Why have you shaved your legs?”
“Commitment, darling,” I reply.
“I want to shave my legs too.”
A moment ago he didn’t even want to wear the dress. I check my phone. “I’m not sure we have time.”
“Haven’t you ever heard of fashionably late?” His hand is on his hip, and I have to bite my lips to stop myself from dissolving into laughter. “If I’m wearing a gown, I should have smooth legs.”
“I still have to do a full beat of makeup on both of us.” I huff . . . take my shirt and trousers back off. “Fine, get in that shower. I’ll shave you real quick.”
But Harry’s frozen to the spot. He’s stopped breathing and is staring at my crotch. “You’re wearing knickers?”
Black lace knickers, in fact. “I told you. Commitment.” Though any old excuse to buy lingerie for myself.
“Oh god,” he says. “Oh my god. Why is that . . .” He clamps his teeth together and makes an animalistic grunting noise.
His reaction to my undergarments becomes undeniably obvious as the bulge in the front of his red dress grows, extends, and shoots off in the direction of his hip.
“Yeah, don’t do that in front of everyone tonight,” I say.
“Shit. Oh my god. Who would have thought that knickers on a dude would be so hot?” He still can’t take his eyes off me, but now he’s holding his erect cock through the fabric like he’s trying to smuggle a weapon.
“I can’t go out like this. What if I think about what you look like in those while we’re in the pub and it happens again? I’m fucking cooked.”
“Can’t you just not think about me in knickers?”
“No, Orlando! It doesn’t work like that, okay? If I try not to think about it, I’ll just end up thinking about it more.”
“Okay . . .” I say, trying to form a resolution plan.
“Go and . . . sort it out. If you bash one out now, it’s unlikely to return?
” Though I’m not entirely sure what a regular guy’s refractory period is.
I’m always long gone before they’ve recovered from the first round.
“But honestly . . .” I look at my watch.
“I don’t think there’s enough time for you to wank and shave, so you’ll just have to choose one. ”
Harry stares at me for a moment longer, bites his lip, moans. His hand is still on his dick. He motions for me to twirl, so I do, and he blinks his eyes upwards towards the ceiling. “Be right back,” he says, and shuts himself inside my bathroom.
I know he’s not shaving, but the thought that he’s in there fucking his fist to the image of me is making me deliriously power drunk. Before I put my costume on again, I set my phone to timer mode and take some pictures to torture him with later.
Harry returns with the biggest smile on his face and the front of his dress looking much, much flatter. “I didn’t shave my legs.”
“I gathered as much.”
I do his makeup and fix his wig on him. The red of the wig exactly matches Harry’s own hair, and I get a glimpse of what his sisters might look like. Then I do my makeup, slip my wig cap on, then my blonde wig, and slide my feet into my shoes, making me about nine feet tall, and we’re ready to go.
Harry giggles when we stand side by side in front of the mirror. I’ve given him a big garden spade as a prop, and I have a replica shotgun.
“We look so good. Oh my god. Let me take some pics,” he says, in between yet more giggling.
We snap a few mirror selfies. Harry uploads a photo to his Instagram stories and includes the tag “fit check.”
He’s so fucking cute, even with the bulge.
I want to kiss him, but I don’t want to ruin either of our lipsticks.
I drive us down the lane, and park my car on the drive of Fernbank Cottage—Owen and Mathias’s house—because the pub’s car park is already full.
We chuck our trainers onto the back seat, so we don’t have to walk home tonight in four-inch heels.
We’re greeted with the most enthusiastic cheering at the door to the pub. It’s wall-to-wall crammed with people, and we spend a few moments working out who hides behind each costume.
Serasi has come dressed as a dentist with a rather lethal-looking nitrous-oxide mask, and Daisy is Audrey II. I can see why she didn’t want to dress as a regular human with a hole in her stomach.
Mr B is Charlie from Twilight, complete with the stick-on moustache and a checked shirt. Mathias is topless. A werewolf’s full rubber headpiece sits on the flip-down bar lid, but for now I guess he’s abandoned it.
Dan Chelford, the Cents’ captain, is Beetlejuice, and his wife is Lydia Deets.
Tom and Bryn are Wayne and Garth.
Molly and her boyfriend—friend who just so happens to be a boy?—are a mummy and an archaeologist.
“We have stiff competition for the couple’s prize,” I whisper to Harry.
“Mathias isn’t dressed up,” he whispers back. “That makes me better than him.”
I don’t argue. Don’t tell him that technically Mathias is Jacob but that it’s too hot inside to wear the full mask.
But I do pivot Harry in such a way that I keep Mathias’s naked torso in my line of vision.
I might not feel attracted to him, but nobody can deny that his body is a fucking work of art.