The Comic Book

No, he had to do this now and do this quickly. He had to get back to his car and get this entire experience over with. He was bouncing so violently between conflicting extremes of desire and fear that he felt himself lose balance and he had to grip his car again.

Then, with a grim determination, he set about undoing the buttons on his jacket. The first one parted, and a glimpse of the pinkness underneath was suddenly flashed to the world in general. His eyes darted left and right as he struggled with the second button, and he could see people approaching again in both directions. His eyes strained to make out who they were, for a split second imagining that they were people he might know, some colleague from work or someone who might recognise him from the gym hundreds of miles away in his home town.

But these were mercifully just strangers.

The second button came loose as he struggled to speed things up and the coat parted some more, as he approached what would be his final state of total embarrassment. The people approaching from either side were talking amongst themselves, but it would only be a matter of seconds before something about Jonathan's demeanour or attire caught their attention. And then he would be exposed, exhibited for their amusement, and he was already imagining the laughter, the barbs, the comments that would be thrown his way. His jaw shook, and he was hunched over as his fingers trembled with the other buttons. His body language betrayed the loss of control he was feeling and the reality of what he was about to do was pounding in his skull.

This was crazy. He knew that. There was no other way out though. He also knew that. With mere seconds to go before the crowd descended upon him, he tore at the other few remaining buttons, audibly gasping as he felt the coat open in his own hands.

Jonathan was normally a tall man. At six foot he had been taller than most at University, with all of the usual benefits in confidence and attractiveness usually afforded to taller men over shorter men. It wouldn't have been too far from the truth to say he was a minor hit with the ladies back in the day, and a combination of a tall, reasonably athletic body coupled with well-groomed jet-black hair had meant he wasn't often too short on dating opportunities.

Some of the guys at the old Fraternity had even been jealous. Not to the point of it being a major drama, but there were a couple who had made snide remarks on occasion about his habits in picking up and dropping women. Which, at the time, he had thought was hilariously hypocritical given how their Fraternity went through a never-ending cycle of debauchery with a nearby Sorority.

Now, hunched over, his coat now in his hands, he was a shadow of that past. Luscious blonde locks flowed down from his head in a princess wig, and now he stood shivering in the heat of a warm day clad only in a ludicrously pink princess costume. The frilly pink skirt that had previously peeked out from under his coat was now joined in all its feminine glory by a ruffled pink top that hugged his figure and plunged down his back before ending in a big red, pink and white bow just above his backside. The skirt had been a light pink, however the bodice was a bright hot pink that felt like it shone like a beacon for miles. The bodice itself curved upwards and gave what was clearly a woman's cut around where the intended wearer's breasts would naturally have been, before finishing in ruffled light pink arms that would have seemed ridiculous on a woman in the 21st century, let alone a man.

A single moment of clarity slapped him full across the face as he realised what he had just done. "Shit," he whispered, disbelievingly.

Now that he was fully exposed, the last shred of proper clothing discarded, the full impact of what he must look like was crashing home. He looked up, fear in his eyes. On both sides, pedestrians were almost upon him and he could sense that they had already noticed him. He threw the coat back into the car. Now that he was fully exposed, he simply had to plough through this, get to the store, and get back again. Every second that he just stood here like an idiot was another second where something could go horribly wrong.

Well, _more_ horribly wrong, he corrected himself.

He grabbed at phone which had been waiting for him on the car seat, succeeding only in dropping it on to the sidewalk. He quickly bent down to pick it up, bending at his waist thoughtlessly, and then letting out a squeak when he realised that by doing so his pink frilly princess skirt had ridden up at the back, exposing a pair of girly, silky panties that had been carefully selected on the criteria of "must have a cartoon pony on the backside". He heard laughter, and instantly knew it was one of the pedestrians who had just coped a view of his supposedly male ass in decidedly feminine clothing. His left hand flew to cover his backside, while he snatched again at his phone, laying on the warm gleaming sidewalk, with his right hand. The footsteps were now all around him and even without looking he knew he wasn't alone.

He could hear whispering, and his face went dark red. The phone slipped from his shaking grasp once again, and he now bent at the waist, almost falling flat on his face as he over-over-balanced on his pink high-heels.

More laughter, and he heard the distinct echo of a "what the fuck?" in what was clearly a woman's voice.

His mind, that was only scant seconds ago enthralled by the new experience of being dressed like a princess in public, was now reeling from the reality of having his manhood so blatantly stripped away. He had — secretly, known only to him — fantasised about this moment quite a few times in bed, in the safety of his own room. He had even made the mistake of chatting with her online when he'd been in one of these moods, so safely cocooned in the sanctity of his private space, when such dares had the appeal of something that could be imagined without any consequences.

Now he was feeling that safe space brutally torn from around him. He was in public, in front of real people who wouldn't forget what they'd seen just because he had finally masturbated back in his room and the desires inside of him had temporarily faded away. No, this was the real world with real consequences and he was dressed up like a fairy princess on a public street!

He finally gathered what was left of his senses, made a determined grab for his phone and stood up, shaking both from the emotional toll this experience was already exerting on him, and from the unusual footwear that his feet and legs were slowly growing accustomed too.

He kept his head down. He knew what they were thinking even without making eye contact. They were seeing a sissy man in a pink princess outfit, whose legs and ass were stuck up in the air by the sparkly pink high-heeled shoes he'd crammed his feet into, and whose red lipstick and makeup didn't hide the fact that he was — under all of this — definitely male.

This was different to how he'd imagined it. He'd imagined just hopping into the store — a comic book store of all places, where the typical clientele weren't exactly the best of dressed or the fittest of specimens themselves — and while there would be some embarrassment it would be contained and brief. He'd imagined the seconds would fly by, not stretch out into these moments that seem to have no end.

Robotically, he slammed the door of his car shut and somehow found the hand-eye coordination to hit the lock button on the car keys. Trembling, he held up the mobile phone and hit record on the camera, swallowing hard as he saw his own image flash up on to the screen.

Now, he wasn't just a sissy pink princess for a moment, he was capturing this embarrassment on camera for posterity. Why had he possibly thought that was a good idea?!

He started to stumble down the street. The pedestrians had passed him by, and now he was trailing one of the pairs. Without evening bothering to look, he knew that the pair behind him was still checking him out. He heard snatches of conversation floating to him on the gentle breeze that teased his clothing, playfully lifting and dropping his frilly skirt, and dancing across the bare skin of his back. He could _feel_ the big bow occasionally shift and brush against his naked skin, and he had to suppress another audible groan from escaping his bright red lips.

He chanted to himself that it would all be different when he got to the store. There, perhaps, it would be more like how he had imagined it when he'd been goading her into that bet.

He walked on, the click of his heels echoing on the hard sidewalk under his feet. He passed by several store fronts, and as he passed one convenience store, an old lady walked out with a small shopping bag and stopped suddenly as she looked, startled, at the sight that was passing her by.

Jonathan just focussed his attention straight ahead, not daring to allow himself to look around. He heard a shocked whisper of condemnation from the old lady, and his ears burned in embarrassment.

He ploughed on, feeling the heat of the morning sun burn his exposed skin, and the blonde wig itched his scalp. Underneath his wig his normal black hair was plastered to his skin, and this sense of impropriety swelled up in new and unexpected ways. Even the fact that he was out in public with his normally well groomed hair in a mess under a wig was a fertile source of embarrassment, flowing from previously unchartered mountains and flooding the exposed plains of his dignity.

His rapid short breathing was audible to anyone near by, although given everything else he was asking their eyes to process, the mere sound of breathing barely registered.

The store was now only a few shop fronts away and he sped up, risking a fall for the relative safety of Titan Comics and the quick completion of his task. Once inside, he'd only be at the mercy of a few scattered patrons who probably weren't the kind he'd normally care about the opinion of anyway. Not like these strangers, peers, normal people like him who were now seeing a distinctly abnormal side to Jonathan. His teeth were chattering with nervousness as he finally made it to the front door of Titan Comics, and he openly sighed in relief as he peered through the window and saw that he was pretty quiet inside.

Not wishing to remain exposed in the broad daylight of an open street any longer, he plunged through the door and into the shop.

Immediately he was greeted by a softer light shining from several sources in the ceiling. He stood in the doorway for a moment and tried to get his bearings. He now cursed himself for not having come here earlier was "normal Jonathan" to ensure he knew _exactly_ where what he had to get would be.

The store opened out in front of him, two large aisles down the middle at the back, with shelves on both of the long walls snaking away from the front door. There were some bargain bins in the middle of the floor at the front of the shop, and to one side there was a long counter where the owner was now looking up from a book, staring in surprise at his new customer.

Jonathan took one step further forward, and then came to a halt as he saw the owner. His brow creased in confusion. He'd been expecting the owner to be some obese, greasy man, possibly with squinting eyes and some ridiculous anime or manga top on. Someone that Jonathan had imagined parading around in front of while wearing his princess outfit, but not someone that he would _really_ truely, deep-down cared about. The kind of nerd that Jonathan - back in his Fraternity days —would probably have been quite happy to mock and denigrate himself.

Instead, the owner was a normal looking man of early-to-middle age, whose tidy polo shirt and well-kept hair remind Jonathan too much of himself. Or at least, the non-sissy-pink-Princess Jonathan that was now disappearing away alarmingly into the hazy mists of the past.

Jonathan coughed uncomfortably and broke away from looking at the owner in embarrassment. He swept his eyes across the shop and saw three other customers. None of them had greasy sweatpants, or massive guts spilling out of ill-fitting pop-culture t-shirts. None of them looked like eternal virgins. Instead, they all looked like normal people. Worse still, some of them were perfectly normal women, and Jonathan felt his manhood shrink under their surprised gaze, as the humiliation from the street followed him at full strength into the store.

Here he was, a man, dressed in clothes far more feminine that the perfectly normal _women_ in the shop were wearing. That compounded his embarrassment even further, as the hoped-for relief of a quirky, nerdy comic store environment was ripped rudely from him.

Realising he'd just been standing stupidly at the door for half a minute, Jonathan finally shuffled over to the counter, where the owner was making no secret of the fact that he was staring directly at him. His pen, which he'd been absent-mindedly chewing, was now hanging out of his open mouth, and the book dangled in his hands, now unread.

"Ahh..." the owner managed, finally extracting the pen from the mouth and pointing it questioningly at Jonathan.

Jonathan grimaced. "I need a comic book," he said, simply.

The owner waved his pen in the general direction of his store, without breaking eye contact at all with Jonathan. "Well, good news, we have some of those."

Jonathan was probably reading more into the tone of the man's words than was really intended, but nevertheless they felt like slaps across his face.

Gruffly, trying to effect a deep masculine voice as if that would in anyway compensate for the attire he was in, Jonathan added "I need a My Little Pony comic". Strategically it was the wrong move, since the gruff voice sounded even more absurd given he was asking for a My Little Pony comic from another man.

The owner treated him to a smile, and waved in the direction of the aisle in the back left corner of the store. "Third shelf at the back," he said, before helpfully adding "next to the Princess Diaries comics."

Jonathan froze in his tracks in the midst of turning to hurry to the aisles and clenched his fists. Shaking, he forced himself to calm down and ignore that last part, and instead re-started, pushing on to the aisles where his salvation lay.

The atmosphere in the comic book store was far more normal than he had expected, and by comparison the absurdity of his own situation was amplified. Two women — both roughly of the same age as Jonathan — paused in their browsing of the latest releases and leaned in to whisper to each other. Both sets of eyes followed Jonathan as he tried to manfully stride through the store, however his inexperience with walking in high-heeled shoes meant that he occasionally staggered forward, helplessly flashing a sneak peak at his panties as his frilly dress took any opportunity to bounce up.

There was a brief burst of laughter at something one of the women said, and Jonathan's red lipstick was once again matched by his blushing cheeks.

Thankfully the store wasn't too large, and the carpeted floor meant that his footsteps didn't echo in the same way that they did outside. Still, as he browsed the comics, mercifully ordered alphabetically so as to reduce the amount of time he'd be stuck here, he began to oscillate again between seething at his predicament and being secretly thrilled at this immensely daring thing he was doing. And, as he kept reminding himself, no one in this city knew him. He would soon walk out that door, and no-one would be any the wiser to who he really was. Even the security camera conspicuously hanging from the ceiling wouldn't be able to penetrate his disguise given how low resolution they tended to be and the angle that it was pointing from.

He began to quickly check the shelves, and was slowly beginning to feel slightly more comfortable when he heard the front door open again. Instinctively he looked up, maybe it was someone leaving — one less person to witness his embarrassment in the store perhaps.

No, it was another woman walking in. Jonathan pursed his bright red lips into a frown, stared at the woman for a moment, but then quickly returned back to his hunting, skimming over the titles and working his way towards the "M"s.

He was now a fair way down the aisle and so wasn't directly visible from the front counter. He was rifling through the Ms though when a sudden sensation of ice cold fear shot down his spine. Slowly, rigidly, he inched his pink-clad body along the aisle, and peered around it to where the new woman was animatedly talking to the owner at the counter.

"Oh shit," he whispered, "oh shit, oh shit!"

It was Stephanie. Fucking Stephanie Masterton. He pulled himself back and pressed his body against the wall, feeling the cold spines of the comics against his bare back, and almost causing several of them to fall down as his big pink bow at the back was pressed into the shelves. He cursed himself and quickly tried to re-arrange the books. He couldn't afford to make a single noise!

Stephanie Masterton. A woman he'd dated for two months back at University, before he'd dumped her somewhat unceremoniously and quite publicly at a mixer party. His eyes shot wide open and his skin went pale in fright.

Suddenly, the danger of his predicament was ratcheted up several orders of magnitude, and his heart began to race. He could feel his hands become clammy as surveyed his options.

Tragically, he seemed to have none.

Stephanie was by the counter — there was no practical way to exit the store without her seeing him. If she came down his aisle, she'd quite clearly see him, and his disguise would fool a low-resolution camera but would hardly fool a woman he'd slept with for two months!

And, as visions of his dumping of her unhelpfully played through his mind, she would hardly be the kind to sweep this all under the carpet, no questions asked. He'd even joked about his dumping of her to people in his Fraternity, friends like Scott and Michael and Don. Friends who he tended to share a lot of things with when they were drunk, and he was now vaguely recalling that he'd heard that some of those stories had gotten back to Stephanie after the fact. He shivered at what all that would mean.

Stephanie knew people that he still knew. If she ever talked about this... if this ever came out... he'd be an absolute laugh stock. And what if she took photos?!

Jonathan screwed his eyes shut, willing all of this to go away. "Just leave the store!" he whimpered, begging her to just go and leave so that he could escape.

Unable to resist, he peered around the edge of the aisle and saw that the store owner was now pointing in the general direction of the back of the store, not too far from where Jonathan was currently cowering in fright.

Then, Stephanie turned to head towards the aisle that Jonathan was in. He almost wet himself at the thought of being discovered like this.

Time slowed down to a trickle. She took one fateful step towards Jonathan, and then another. He had no where to run. Nowhere to hide. He would be obvious the split second she entered the aisle and there was nothing, absolutely nothing he could do. He was helpless. Exposed, embarrassed, and about to entrapped in what was now no longer a simple consequence-free dare, but something that was now going to have profound shockwaves through this life.

Princess Jonathan! That's how he'd be known now at work! Pretty Princess Jonathan, who loved his pretty pink princess dress, and who liked to wear makeup and prance around in sparkly pink shoes! They'd be merciless! In their shoes, _he'd_ have been merciless to _them_.

"Oh God no!" Jonathan swore under his breath, "Please God no!"

He backed away, uselessly. There was nowhere to go. He hit wall at the back of the store and just pressed himself against it, hoping against hope that it would simply swallow him up.