If I owned RENT, would I be writing fanfiction about it? I thought not.
The tights incident reflects my own first experience with tights.
Michelle rocked her baby sister back and forth, trying to stop her crying.
"Shhh… shhh…" she crooned soothingly. She tried an old Spanish lullaby. No such luck. The doorbell rang. Mike. She carried Grace to the door and opened it. There stood mike, holding his backpack and a paper bag.
"Hola! Sorry about the crying," she motioned to little baby Grace in her arms and opened the door wider. "Come in! We'll work in my room and the bathroom mainly, but first I need to get this little one to sleep."
"May I try?" volunteered Mike.
"It can't hurt." Michelle carefully handed Grace to Mike. He cradled her, slowly rocking the cranky baby back and forth, rubbing her tiny palms with his thumb. He sang a slow nonsense song in her ear, and she quieted almost instantly.
"How did you do that?" Michelle was amazed. "Mike, you're an ang-"
"An angel? Yea, I've been told that one before."
"Well, it's true." Michelle was rewarded for her compliment with a warm smile from Mike. Looking over Mike's shoulder, Michelle saw the clock. It was 4:15, and the dance was supposed to start at 6.
"C'mon." Michelle grabbed Mike's thin wrist and led him down a short hallway into her room.
She got out all of her makeup, and put it on the little table underneath her simple mirror. Mike looked at it, astounded. He never knew that girls could use so much stuff on their faces. Michelle noted his surprised look.
"That's for later." She explained. "First, we need to get you into a dress. Then comes the wig, and then the makeup is last."
"Alright." Mike agreed.
"Now," she handed him a piece of smooth material, and two strips of some stretchy stuff. "That's your dress and tights, go put them on! The bathroom's right across the hall."
Mike walked across the hall, into the white and blue tiled bathroom. He lay out the dress and tights, just looking at them. They were not things he could imagine Michelle wearing – a black minidress with white edges, a zebra striped belt and zebra striped tights.
Mike took a deep breath, and unbuckled the belt of his baggy jeans. They slipped to the floor, and he picked up the tights. He shook his head at the zebra stripes, and plunged his small foot into one leg of the tights, then the other into the other leg. He quickly got tangled in the mass of black and white, and considered calling Michelle for help, but then he remembered that he had no pants on, and asking her to help him put on tights would prove to be an awkward situation, even his he was gay. He took them off and started again, this time trying to put them on like socks, one foot all the way, then the other. Once he got one on correctly, he could not bend his leg all the way up to his waist in order to put the other foot in. He tried, but then- CRASH!
"Mike?" Michelle's worried voice rang through the door. "Are you okay?"
"Uno momento, chica!" he called back. He threw his own pants back on, and stormed back to Michelle's room, holding the tights.
"These things are torture!" he exclaimed.
Michelle giggled. "Couldn't figure them out?" she asked.
"No," pouted Mike.
"Okay, I'll help."
"Uhmm… how?" Michelle glared at him, and pulled a pair of bright blue tights out of her drawer. She sat down on her bad, and invited Mike to do the same. He sat, and she held the tights out in front of her. Mike sat down and did the same.
"Now, you take one leg and scrunch it all the way up like this," She gathered all of the material of one leg into a little scrunched loop, holding the edges apart with her thumbs. Mike did the same.
"You put your foot there, like a sock, but be careful, these things break, and bring it up to you knee. Do the same with the other foot, and then bring them both up to your hips at the same time. That should work. Now, shoo!"
Mike went back into the bathroom, got the tights on correctly, figured the dress out by himself, and got the belt on perfectly. He walked back into Michelle's room to see her setting up all of her makeup stuff on her makeshift vanity. She looked up, hearing him come in
"Mike!" she squealed. She looked him up and down.
"We have one problem." She said.
"Is the belt wrong... what?"
"No, you got that perfecta, but, dear, it's that you don't have boobs. Mike looked down.
"Oh, yea."
"Well, there's only one solution."
"And that is…?"
"A padded bra."
"Oh, dear."
"Well, you are a boy…"
"Thanks for reminding me."
"Alright, if you weren't gay I totally would not ask this, but could you unzip the back of your dress to the belt?"
"I'm glad I'm gay." Mike obliged. Michelle directed him in how to put the bra on, and she helped him fill it with tissue.
"If I ever become a drag queen, I will need to get a non-tissue filled one of these." Mike commented.
"That's what dances are for." Michelle zipped the dress back up, and looked at her handiwork. "Looks great!" she pronounced.
"Can I get a mirror?"
"No. I need to finish before you can look."
"Oh… por favor?" Mike begged.
"No. Now, you said you had a wig?"
"Si, esta aqui" Mike pulled a simple black bob out of the paper bag he had carried in.
"Oh… que lindo! (how cute) Put it on, put it on." Mike slipped the wig onto his head.
"It's itchy. I don't think I can keep it all night-"
"You're going to have to, honey. Here, I think this might help." Michelle handed him a simple black headband. "Put that on under the wig."
Mike obeyed, and his transformation from male to female was almost complete.
"Mike, honey, we might have to rename you, it looks so realistic! All you need is a little makeup…" she quickly applied some lipstick, blush, and eye shadow to Mike's face. Michelle stepped back to consider eyeliner.
"Hmm… I think your eyelashes are long enough to avoid eyeliner. I don't like the stuff much, and I doubt you will."
"Okay," Mike agreed, "But do you really think we need to rename me?"
"Of course, chico – or should I say chica now? – Well, in either case, we need to. We can't have you go around looking like that and being called 'Mike' now can we?"
"Well, then… how about Angel? It can come from Michelangelo, and you did say-"
"Perfect. You are now my Angel-chica."
"Wait a minute, you need a new name, too now!"
"We'll decide that after I get dressed." Michelle shoo-ed Mike-now-Angel out of the room so that she could change.
When she stepped out the door, she looked nothing like the timid Michelle Mike had met on the first day of school. She was wearing a black halter top with red sequins on it and a pair of black tights with a dark red almost black miniskirt over them. She was wearing platform black sequined shoes to match the shirt. Angel just gawked.
"Honey if I weren't gay…" was all he could get out.
"Thanks, Mi- Angel." She stuttered over his - no, her, she corrected herself - name.
"You defiantly are not my timid Michelle-chica. You do need a new name."
"Uhmm.. well yours comes from your own name. What nicknames could some from mine?"
"Shell?"
"No."
"Shelly?"
"No. Mimi?"
"Ohh! I like that one. I'm Angel-chica, and you are Mimi-chica."
"But only while we are in these clothes. If we go around school in out normal clothes being called Angel and Mimi, it would get weird. Especially for you, chica."
"Alright."
"Now, let's go to the dance!"
Yay! I kept on typing Angel in the last chapters rather than Mike, but now I can type Angel, Angel, Angel!
Wow, this was a long one. I have been working on it since the last update, though, so that's a little obvious.