DUDE! I GOT REVEIWS!

::high fives to reviewers::

I'd leave you all shoutouts…but I'm, like, really, really, REALLY tired, and I am far too lazy to really actually do anything. Dang school, making me all worn out. Grrr.

So yeah, don't blame me. Sorry! XD

But the reviews are appreciated. And I love them.

Muchly. So, yeah, ONWARD TO CHAPTER TWO!!

Mary Sue sidled up to Aaron-Erin after the rehearsal was over.

"How do you know Mister Sullivan?" she asked breathily, batting her eyelashes. "He's so handsome."

Aaron sort of stared at her. He could almost hear crickets chirping as the other dancer smiled at him like a hyperactive puppy. "

Uh…he's an old friend of mine," the transvestite finished lamely. "

Oh!" Mary Sue's brilliant blue eyes widened. "Were you childhood sweethearts?"

Aaron figured it wouldn't do any harm to lie and say yes. Mary Sue wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed, anyway, and it would probably keep up his girl façade quite well. The last thing he wanted was for the other girls to go around saying that he was into women.

Not that he wasn't into women, because he was. He liked boobs and butts and long hair and whatnot. A lot.

But he was posing as a chick, and that presented problems.

"…sure, I guess you could say that."

After this little statement, Aaron thought Mary Sue was going to burst from excitement.

"He must be in love with you, Erin!" Mary Sue squealed. Then she stopped, looking kind of confused. "But I don't understand. You're not even that good looking."

It was a good thing Aaron wasn't really a woman, because that would have hurt him deeply had he been female. But he wasn't, so it didn't.

"…I mean," she continued, glancing at Aaron's tousled wig and rumpled skirt. He felt rather exposed. "It's nothing we can't fix…but no offense, Erin, darling, you sometimes really and truly do look like a man."

Maybe Mary Sue wasn't all that bright, but she sure was observant. Aaron-Erin made a mental note to stay far, far, far, far away from her.

But before he could escape her evil clutches, the annoying (and oddly perfect?) girl grabbed Aaron by the wrist and dragged the transvestite down off the stage. She got him down the white steps, Aaron struggling, and onto one of the chairs in the audience.

It must be noted that a certain Francis Sullivan was seated not too far away.

- - - - -

Mary Sue sat Aaron down, and then grabbed a random and oddly convenient mirror and comb from the next table over. Aaron's brown eyes widened considerably. He knew what was coming now.

"Erin, now that we're friends," Mary Sue began, lifting up the comb as Aaron squirmed in fear. "I've decided to make you my new project."

Aaron attempted to get up, but the crazy dame pushed him down again.

"You really don't have to do that, Mary Sue."

"I know!" she chuckled. "That's what makes me so nice!"

Aaron whimpered and raised a hand to his 'hair'. If Mary Sue even touched his wig with the wide-toothed comb, the curly mop would surely come right out of his scalp!

He would be, to put it bluntly, screwed.

And the goddamn wig would be frizzy.

But then! Medda, bless her soul, interrupted the disappointed Mary-Sue.

"Hey, Erin, we need you for costume fitting. C'mon."

Aaron practically skipped away.

After this pointless (and rather terrible) attempt at humor and Broadway references, Medda took Aaron back to the costume room. The costume room was behind the stage, as most costume rooms ought to be, and contained…costumes, believe it or not. Lots of them.

Aaron had never been in this sacred place, for it was out-of-bounds for lowly dancers like him. Medda never allowed anyone in there. Ever. She always kept it locked and held the key around her neck on a chain at all times. The Meadowlark yelled whenever someone walked past the Costume Room.

It was for reasons Aaron never knew.

And he never wanted to know, either. He figured that it was for some secret reason, something terrible and inhumane. Perhaps she hid a disfigured child in there, or maybe a dead body.

In reality, Medda a victim of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. But Aaron didn't know that.

- - - - - -

He stared wonderingly around the small rose-colored room. There were racks of huge, frilly dresses, cloaks and pants and suspenders, shoes scattered throughout the floor, wigs and canes, hanging off of boxes. A large, ornate mirror stood in the center of the place, a huge purple thing that glimmered in the light. The room was a costume-lover's dream.

Well, it was a room for costumes. So there you go. "

So, your dress," said Medda, looking over at Aaron-Erin with her horn-rimmed spectacles. She glanced down at a paper she held in her hands. "How do you feel about a bright orange skirt and top? And a fruit hat?"

A Fruit Hat? Thought Aaron. Gee, I'm getting over my head here…

"I don't know, Miss Medda," he answered truthfully. "You don't know. Girl, you don't know anything. Okay. That'll have to do. You'd look ravishing in a fruit hat, that Sullivan kid out there will love you. I think we have one…yeah, here…lemme check…"

Medda had a tendency to go off on run-on thought sentences.

Aaron watched as she rummaged around the room, tearing wrappers and other hats and God-Knew what else. The director was mumbling to herself. He caught snippets of her conversation, things like—

"Oh, no, that would look dreadful with her hair, that's terrible—oh! What's this?"

and

"—No, no, no, the boys would never go for that, we're gotta show more cleavage—"

and

"Well, --curse word--! We don't have any bright orange skirts! Not one! I suppose I'll have to ask the Phantom, dash it all!"

The phantom.

Wait—the phantom?

Yes. The phantom.

As you, dear readers, all know from the previous chapter, there was a Theater "Ghost" living in Irving that made clothes for Medda and all the dancers. A ghost that sent a letter to the Misters Sullivan demanding money, or else. A ghost that supposedly was just a kid from Manhattan and is a major character in our story of hope and woe.

You all know this.

Aaron, though, was a little slow on the uptake. In Chapter One, he had barely even heard the important conversations and plot details, and so had no idea that The Phantom designed clothes. He always thought a dame did it; the design was so good and fine. Ah, poor, naïve Aaron-Erin.

"The phantom?" he said, a little fearfully. "Will I have to see him?"

Medda stared. "No. Christ, kid, where have you been? The Phantom don't take our measurements, we give it to him and then he makes the clothes for us. A win-win situation."

"Oh, right. How could I have forgotten?" Aaron tried to cover up his mistake, not succeeding. "So silly of me."

Medda smiled gently. "Damn right it was silly."

Then, her expression turned as dark as a thunderstorm. "Now get outta my dressing room!"

Aaron turned on his shoe and ran. Which was awfully hard to do in high heels.

----------

Behind the grand, ornate, beautiful mirror, a young man stood, his face smooshed against the rear of the thing so he could listen. He had to be hunched over so he could hear and see what was being said through the small cracks, but it was worth it.

It was so worth it.

How often does one find one's object of sexual desire anyway?

The young man (now referred to as the Phantom from now on) was now sure this girl, the one with the dark curly hair and the humongous chest, was The One. The one he wanted. She was an aptitude of perfection, a specimen in the human world.

She was also despicably unladylike and looked sort of like a man, but that was okay because she had a nice ass.

The Phantom abandoned all thoughts of the Mayor's Daughter, from then and thereafter. There was a beautiful woman in the opera house (besides Medda, of course) and he was going to romance her into his bed. Quickly and efficiently, he was sure.

Dames loved the mysterious homicidal ghost thing. He knew from experience.

There's gotta be some way, he thought. There's just gotta be!

As the boy thought and thought and thought, an idea struck him and a grin slowly slid across his face. He began to softly cackle like a lunatic, waving his arms around like a preacher in a pulpit.

He knew exactly what he was going to do.

A/N: Ha, Blink's a pervert. But that's what we like about him, no? xD

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A/N: Don't you just hate it when there's an Author's Note in the middle of a story?

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After running away from Medda, our favorite transvestite character (Aaron, in case you were wondering) scurried to his dressing room to hide. He didn't want anyone to find him; he'd had too many close calls for one day. People usually didn't question his girl-ness, because who would expect a drag queen living right in the middle of Irving Hall?

That's right. No one.

Heh.

But Aaron's wish to be alone was not to be granted. He had barely been in his room five minutes before someone barged through the door like a big great lumbering elephant.

It was Jack—I mean, uh, Francis Sullivan.

"I thought I'd find you here," he said in his charming accent.

Aaron backed up, his heart rate speeding up several spots. "How did you, um, find my dressing room?"

"Mary Sue." The gentleman answered promptly. Aaron cursed.

"Look,' Francis scratched the back of his neck awkwardly, descending on Aaron like a rabid vulture. "I just wanted to—"

"Mister Sullivan," Aaron said at the same time. "I really don't think you—ah!"

This Ah! submitted by Aaron-Erin was a rather ungirlish Ah! In fact, it was almost manly, but Aaron had a very good reason for this particular scream that may or may not have revealed his boydom.

He had a very good reason, indeed.

I bet all of you would go Ah! too, if a guy who you just barely knew shoved you up against a wall and rammed his tongue down your throat.

I certainly would, though I would draw out the Ah! part. It would be more of an Aaaaaaah. Or perhaps an OoOOo.

But anyway.

Aaron felt the presence of fingers move up to his bosom area and attach itself to his chest area, groping, feeling, and squeezing. He hoped the lemon and orange (for that was what made up his fake woman area) wouldn't leak what with all the touching.

He tried to stop Frankie from touching him—he didn't really care for being so close to a guy, anyway—but before he could pull himself away, Francis let go of Aaron's mouth. It came out with a popping sound not unlike a plunger.

"Why're your boobs so hard?" Frankie asked, point-blank. "They don't feel normal."

Oh, shit.

Aaron took a very big chance at this point. He felt himself blush as he yanked away from his captor and asked:

"Well, Frankie, have you ever felt a woman's chest before?"

The other young man's fertile blush told Aaron-Erin he had just hit the jackpot.

"You haven't?" The transvestite asked, amazed.

"I—"

Francis Sullivan's answer was interrupted, to his delight and Aaron's disappointment, by a large flour sack falling randomly out of the wall from the vent.

(and don't you dare go and review telling me there were no vents in 1897. Because if they had exit signs, (check out the High Times Hard Times scene, folks) they had vents. So there)

"What the—" Aaron mumbled. He picked up his skirts and hurried over to the bag, curiously. "A flour sack?"

Yes indeed, ladies and gents, a flour sack. But this was no ordinary sack. This sack…. carried…magic!

Kidding. Actually, it was an ordinary brown flour sack. It looked just the type you'd find at the grocery store, except for one very odd detail--

It was a picture of a man. More accurately, it was a picture of a hanging man, with a real rope around its neck

The man, Aaron had to say, was very badly drawn. Its eyes bulged out unnaturally, the ears were far too huge, the nose was crooked, and in fact had it not said in badly written letters "Sullivan" he would have had no idea who it was.

"Say, that's me!" Francis exclaimed, stating the obvious. "I'm being hung!"

"Well, aren't you a bright one?" Aaron mumbled.

Francis glared.

Aaron sighed.

And inside the vent, a certain Phantom snickered evilly.

Urg, I didn't really like this chapter. Oh, well. It's kinda slow, I know, but it'll get faster when Mush (who else is getting tired of me calling Mush Aaron?) meets the one and only Kid Blink. Teehee. And then there shall be plot twists and other such wonderful things in my story. So stay tuned!

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Oh, and if there's not too much trouble…remember to review. They go great with thin mints. XD

Ta!

me