Lunchtime arrives and I find a nice bench to sit on outside by the track where some runners are passing by.
"And now, I wait," I say to myself, unpacking the lunchboxes I brought. Both were cold turkey and wasabi sandwiches, with a few cookies and a soda. Sitting back, I look at the sky and lose myself in the blue.
"Hey David, been waiting long?" A voice snaps me out of my trance. Allice was standing next to me and I hadn't noticed.
"No. I think I just got here," I say as I hand her a lunchbox and she sits next to me.
"I got a day off tomorrow. Do you have any plans?" She opens her lunchbox and begins eating. "Ooo, wasabi."
"Only a day?" I ask, taking a bite.
"This week's been pretty crazy. No one ever said being a pop star was easy."
"Yeah but, only a day?"
"Are you doing anything or not?"
"I was going to get a haircut-"
"No, it's so long now- don't cut it." She wraps an arm around my neck and strokes my hair with both hands.
"Why not? I only let it get so long because of that human evolution assignment a while back."
"But you look so cute and adorable and I love you!"
"What was that?"
"I said you look so cute and adorable! How about this? If you get a haircut; I'll get one too, and we can look all manly together." She puffs up and flexes almost comically, and despite her muscular physique, she still looks as dainty as a fairy.
"Manly?" I laugh at the notion until I notice how serious she is. "Ok, I'll keep it long. Gotta keep that 'Allice in Wonderland' aesthetic. After all, it's not Adam in wonderland."
"Ooh, thank you- thank you- thank you!" she begins ruffling through my hair at increased speeds.
"The more you do that, the longer it's going to take me to comb it out later."
"Don't worry, I'll help." She slows down a bit but keeps going.
"So, what do you plan on us doing tomorrow?"
"I was thinking we could go to a cafe and eat some sweets. Then we can go shopping and we can try on some dresses."
"What do you mean 'we try on dresses'?"
"Come on. You'll look so cute in a dress."
"Nope."
"I'll be in a dress too."
"You're always in a dress."
"Yeah, but afterward, we can go to the movies-"
"Movies, yes; dress, no."
"Then after the movies we can..." she looks around suspiciously and then whispers into my ear before turning a bit red.
After hearing what she had to say, I couldn't help turning a bit red myself. "Alright, I'll try anything once, but nothing crazy after that, alright?"
"I promise," She says with the smuggest smile I'd ever seen on her.
"But what if somebody we know sees us? All the other guys'll start looking at me differently" I sip my soda; half done with my sandwich.
"I know somewhere nobody from our school goes." She winks. "Nobody needs to know."
"I can't change your mind on this, can I?" She's already shaking her head before I finish my sentence.
"You already said you'll do it." She gives me a peck on the cheek. "For a day, my boyfriend will be my girlfriend."
"I'll do it, but I'm not going to like it." I take another bite and nearly choke on it.
Allice pats my back and says, seductively, "You'll love it"
-afternoon the next day-
"Three, two, one, open your eyes!"
I open them and what I see before me is a slender figure hidden shyly behind a blue flowery loose blue and red dress, ear length brown hair tied loosely with a pink butterfly hair clip and waving down in the front just over a pair of sparkly wide brown eyes, and blue flat shoes open at the top.
I blink and look to my right. Allice is standing there dressed similarly except her blonde hair is draped across her shoulders and she's is a green Chinese style dress and matching heels.
"So? like it?" She says, smiling effectively.
"I... I don't even know what to say..." I looked back at the mirror. "That's not me."
"You're right. That's Diana. 'David' is staying here. I'm taking Diana on a date. How does that sound?" She takes my hand and puts it to her lips.
"I already agreed, so... I guess I can't complain..."
"That's the spirit." She leads me by the hand to the door of her room. "Now, you remember what I taught you, right?" I scowl and she pinches my face with her fingers in response.
"Yes ma'am," I say, realizing how serious she is about our date.
"Good, now as long as you conduct yourself like a nice little lady, we can enjoy ourselves both now..." She lets her hand trail down from my face to my waist. "And later..."
We walk for a solid thirty minutes and all I can do was look around nervously.
"Don't worry, we're almost there." Allice seems to find joy in my suffering.
"Why did we have to walk all the way there?" I ask in a whisper.
"Obviously it's so I can show you off. I mean, look at you. I'd go gay for you."
"That's not the point," I whisper urgently, trying not to raise my voice.
"How're you two young ladies doing this evening?" A guy appears out of nowhere. He's dressed for a night out in a casual suit. I'm too scared to look at his face in case he's someone who knows me.
"We're doing fine, thank you," says Allice with a smile.
"Going somewhere special?" He keeps pace with us.
"We're on a date." She grabs my hands in hers.
"In that case, can I offer you two a coupon for-"
"I'm sorry, we must hurry along." She pulls me suddenly and I stumble behind her for half a block.
"Do we know that guy?" I ask, still whispering.
"No, but he might know us. He's a big-shot photographer with a magazine company. To think we'd run into someone like that here." She sighs. "If we run into him again, he won't leave us alone until he gets a picture."
"Well, what do we do?"
"You'll have to take the lead next time."
"But he'll hear my voice."
"We'll take care of that problem in time. For now, just be the quiet little princess you are."
Reluctantly, I nod my head and keep quiet.
An hour and a half later, we arrive at a mall on the other side of town. The sun just started setting and the glass building reflects the amber haze of the sky perfectly. We enter and make a B-line for the clothes store.
Allice immediately begins picking out dresses left and right. I open my mouth many times to object to the ones she chooses for me but close it immediately as we're always in close proximity to someone else.
After maybe ten minutes of picking out clothes, she practically forces me into the changing room and won't let me go until I try on at least eight different dresses. They were wildly different in design and materials.
The tight space and awkward nudity triggers a response in me that I'm not expecting. Allice, on the other hand, was all too prepared for it. As she does whatever she wants, I endure it all silently. Needless to say, it takes a while for us to leave the booth.
Allice buys three of the eight dresses she made me try on while I stand by silently.
"Done being quiet?" she asks, handing me a bag of dresses.
I look away from her and at the floor.
"Oh, don't be like that." She leans in close to my ear. "I have a way we can fix that." She backs off. "Although, you are pretty cute being all mute like that."
I start walking straight toward the cinema on the other side of the mall.
"No, wait. I was just having my fun, come back." She catches up with me. "Look, you can't stay mad at me, right."
I look at her and look away with a huff.
"Okay." She grabbed my wrist and stopped walking, causing me to stop as well. "Alright, look up and try to sound as feminine as possible, I'll take care of the rest."
I look at her questioningly then do what she says. What escapes my throat is the highest voice I can make in imitation of my mom's voice, the only feminine voice I can copy.
Quickly, Allice raises her hand and flicks my throat hard.
"Ow," I say, gripping my throat. "Whoa," I say, noticing that my voice stayed high on its own. "How did you?"
"Every girl knows that it's all in the wrist." She flicks her finger in the air a few times and winks.
"Sure," I say.
The walk to the cinema is short and uneventful, but once we get there, we have a choice to make. Despite how meticulously this date was planned, neither of us thought of what movie to watch.
"What do you wanna watch?" Allice was looking between the posters displayed at the cinema entrance with a big smile on her face.
"I thought you already picked one out."
"Nope. I thought I'd leave this one up to you."
I let my eyes trail between the images hanging on the walls. "I don't know. I'm fine with anything as long as it's fun."
"Fun, huh?" Taking one last look, the girl still holding my arm nearly drags me into the theater with one hand. "I know what we're watching."
Before I have a chance to ask, she already paid for the tickets and started buying snacks.
"Wait, what are we watching?"
"You'll see. What kind of snacks do you want? They have sour gummy worms."
"Oh, they do?"
"How many do you think you could eat?"
"You don't want to know that answer."
"Well, now I gotta know."
We ended up with four family-sized bags of sour gummy worms, an extra-large bucket of popcorn to share, and two large sodas.
We sit near the back of the theater and the film starts nearly ten minutes later. It turns out it's a supernatural horror movie about a home that's visited by a different monster every week while the family has to figure out how to survive each creature. As long as one family member survives when the monsters show up, they all come back to life with no memory of what happened.
Halfway through the movie, Allice stood to go to the bathroom and pulls me along with her. We miss most of the movie that way.
After the movie, we head back. Almost every store we pass is closed. We walk and talk without a care in the world.
"Excuse me, ladies." A vaguely familiar voice sounded in front of us.
I yelp in surprise as I realize it was the guy from earlier. He wears an innocent look while his eyes wander directly below our faces.
"Uh, I, um, um uh...." I remember that I'm supposed to take charge in case we ran into him again and panic.
"No need to be so shy." He reaches into his suit pocket and produces a small camera. "I just want to interest you in a photoshoot." He smiles. "I'm a photographer and I've been having a hard time finding models. I was just wondering if you lovely ladies would like to have your picture taken."
"Um, I'm, I'm, I'm..." I can't explain it, but I'm suddenly overrun with emotion. "I'm sorry, I can't do it..." I begin bawling on Allice's shoulder.
"Are- are you okay?" asks the man.
"Look what you've done! Of course, she's not okay!" I've never heard Allice sound so furious in my life.
"Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean-"
"Step off!" She stamps her foot and scares the man away. She coddles me as we continue walking.
"I'm sorry. I don't know what came over me." I can barely look her in the eye while talking.
"It's fine, don't worry about it." She has an arm around me with a tight grasp. "I'm the one who put you in that situation, so I'll make it up to you."
"O-ok." It wasn't hard to imagine what she meant.
Once we got to her house, we went straight to her room.
"You ready to end the night with a bang?" She pulls me in for a kiss that lasts long enough for me to run out of breath and serves to dull my sense of awareness.
I drop the bags I'm holding and embraced her. We almost fall on the floor, but land on the bed instead. We begin feeling all over each other and gripping anything we can. Eventually, we end up in a compromised position. I'm leaning over her and her legs are around me. I reach down and begin pulling the dress I'm wearing up over my head.
"Keep it on," says Allice, "Let's do this like women."
I oblige and lean into her. Before we know it, the sun is shining between our bated breaths and harsh voices.
"It's morning," I say, first to notice.
"Now's a good time to stop." My partner attempts to sit up, but falls backward and begins snoring softly.
"Maybe it is..." Before I know it, my head is on her chest and my vision is fading. "I love you."