Sandy Lane glanced at his Rip Curl watch as he paddled back
towards the lineup. Less then twenty seconds remaining in his heat. Sandy had
one good wave under his belt, but unless he nailed another one, there was no
way he was going to make it into the finals.
He glanced over his right shoulder, and at first he couldn’t
believe what he saw. The surf had been small all morning, but looming behind
him was the largest swell he had ever seen. Sandy started paddling for all he
was worth, turning to his right to get into position before the wave broke. He
timed it perfectly, dropping in as the enormous wave crested and broke around
him. He was in free fall as he stood up and plunged down the thirty foot face,
and he disappeared into a canopy of water as the raging surf engulfed him.
The judges and spectators thought he had wiped out until he
was blown out of the tube, still standing, his arms raised in triumph. Awarded
a perfect ten score on the wave of the day, Sandy Lane was catapulted into the
finals of the Masters World Surfing Championship
He rode the shore break back in, still stoked over his
amazing performance, and he didn’t see Buster Cruz approaching him as he got
out of the water. The reigning champion, Cruz towered over the diminutive Lane,
and his face was livid with rage. He grabbed Sandy’s shoulder and spun him
around. “Here’s what happens to assholes who drop in on me and snake my wave,”
Cruz said as he sucker punched Sandy in the nose, knocking him clean off his
feet. Sandy was unconscious before his face went into the water.
* * *
Three days later, Sandy regained consciousness. He was
aware of a tube running out of his nose, and white gauze interfered with his
field of vision. When he tried to turn his head, it felt like a cherry bomb went
off inside his skull. He fell back onto his pillows and lost consciousness
again.
When he finally came around for good, he was surrounded by
doctors, nurses, and a police sergeant. The doctors explained to him that he
was suffering from a severely broken nose and a grade three concussion, and the
sergeant told him that Buster Cruz had been arrested and charged with
aggravated assault. When Sandy tried to speak, his voice was so weak that the
sergeant was unable to take a statement from him. The doctors prescribed more
rest, and Sandy returned to his nightmares.
As the days passed, his strength gradually returned. The
first time his bandages were removed, the nurses recoiled in obvious horror at
the sight of his smashed nose. Sandy Lane had been blessed with classic California
good looks, and with his shoulder-length blonde hair and slight physique, he
had sometimes been mistaken for a girl. Now his perfect nose was plastered all
over his face, and his cheekbones and eye sockets were still badly swollen from
the impact of Buster’s fist.
The doctors assured him that surgery to repair his face
would be scheduled as soon as the swelling went down enough for them to
operate. Sandy spent endless days lolling in his hospital bed, bored out of
his mind and overwhelmed with despair over the end of his surfing season. At
twenty-four, he did not have that many good years left in him, and whatever
money he had managed to save was going to be eaten up by his hospital bills.
One thing was for sure, the meager income which he used to make from modeling
wetsuits and board shorts would dry up when his sponsors got a good look at his
face.
Even his return to pro surfing was in doubt, since Buster
Cruz had made veiled threats that if he ever ran into Sandy Lane again, he
would finish the job. Cruz had lost most of his sponsors, and was facing a
possible jail term, all on account of Sandy Lane. If Sandy did make it back on
the tour, he knew that Cruz would be laying for him.
A few days before his facial surgery was scheduled, Sandy
had a visitor. She was tall, thin, high-strung, and well-dressed. She
surveyed his broken face with professional interest as he studied her card. Her
name was Darla Palmer, and she was an Assistant Executive Producer for a Hollywood
studio. Sandy was surprised when she took a digital camera out of her purse
and snapped a picture of him.
“Casting for a new horror film?” he asked her. “I can play the
monster without any makeup.”
“Not quite. When are you supposed to get your nose fixed?”
“Day after tomorrow.”
“I’ll be back before then.”
* * *
“Amazing. Just uncanny,” Darla Palmer said as she studied
the photographs in front of her. A techie from the computer lab hovered over
her shoulder as she glanced back and forth between three separate photos, lined
up side by side on her polished rosewood desk. On the far left was the picture
she had taken of Sandy Lane in his hospital room. On the far right was a
studio portrait of Ashley Vaughn, a rising starlet who had just been signed for
the lead role in Wet Girls, an upcoming television series about a female
surfing professional. And in the center was a digitally recreated photograph
of Sandy Lane, with a new nose. It was indistinguishable from the photograph
of Ashley Vaughn.
“All I did was morph Ashley’s nose onto the picture you gave
me, and presto!” the techie was saying. Darla reached into a file drawer
beside her desk and pulled out a buff manila folder. She took out a sheet of
paper with Ashley’s vital statistics, and compared it with a profile on Sandy Lane
from Surfer magazine. “Age: Ashley 23, Sandy 24. Eyes: Ashley blue, Sandy
blue. Hair: Ashley blonde, Sandy blonde. Height: Ashley 5’ 7”, Sandy 5’ 7”.
Weight: Ashley 125 pounds, Sandy 135 pounds…nothing that a little diet couldn’t
take care of.”
“Sex?” asked the techie.
“You are sworn to secrecy about this, or I’ll have your
job. Got it?”
“Sure, Miss Palmer. I won’t breathe a word. What are you
up to?”
“Ashley Vaughn is a lovely girl, but she has zero athletic
ability. We’ve been pulling our hair out trying to find a stunt double for her
surfing scenes in Wet Girls. I think we just found him…or rather, her.”
* * *
Sandy’s operation was canceled, and a few days later he was
flown in a private jet to a clinic in Palm Springs, where his plastic surgery
was to be performed. During the flight, he tried to get through the thick
contract which Darla Palmer had given him to read on the plane. He was so
stoked about the prospect of making some serious money as a stunt double that
he only glanced through it. The print was very small, and a lot of the words
he could not understand.
Sandy knew that they wanted him to do surfing scenes for Ashley
Vaughn in a television series about a girl surfer, and he thought that was kind
of cool. One of his buddies was still bragging about the bread he scored by
putting on a bikini and surfing the big wave scenes in Blue Crush, and Sandy
was looking forward to being surfer rich for a change. He was used to eking
out an existence from tournament to tournament, and the idea of getting paid
serious money to be in the water, surrounded by pretty actresses, was too good
to pass up. He signed the contract in duplicate after struggling through the
first few pages.
His surgery took place the next morning. Once again, he
woke up with gauze wrapped around his face and a tube running out of his nose,
only this time he was in a private room, with nonstop service and plenty of
surfing magazines and videos to amuse him. The days passed quickly, until Darla
Palmer showed up one morning with a nurse and a doctor in tow. “Ready to see
the new you?” Darla asked.
“Sure, anything would be an improvement over the way I
looked after Buster flattened me. Will I recognize myself?”
“I told you, Sandy, that we were going to make some changes
to help you with your acting. Don’t worry, if you don’t like it, we can always
change it again after we finish with the series. Right, doctor?”
“Of course. Let’s see how we’ve done.” The doctor and Darla
watched as the nurse snipped the gauze with a pair of long scissors and gently
began to unravel the bandage. When she pulled off the last of it, both Darla
and the nurse gasped as the doctor nodded his approval.
“What is it?” Sandy asked in alarm.
“Oh my God, he’s a dead ringer for that girl who’s waiting
outside,” the nurse blurted out.
“What are you talking about?” Sandy asked.
The doctor produced a mirror. “See for yourself, Mr. Lane.”
Sandy took the mirror and stared at his reflection in shock.
He now had the cute, upturned nose of Ashley Vaughn. With his long blonde
hair, he looked just like her.
“Of course, you’ll look a lot better after we do something
with your hair,” Darla said. “Would you care to meet your twin?”
Sandy lay speechless in bed as Darla left, returning a
moment later with Ashley Vaughn. “Ashley, meet Sandy,” Darla said in triumph.
Ashley’s jaw dropped when she saw Sandy’s face. “Wow, he’s
perfect.” She stuck out her hand and Sandy awkwardly took it. “This is going
to be so cool.”
“Stand up, Sandy, and let’s get a good look at you,” Darla
said after the doctor left the room. Sandy was in a daze as he got up, feeling
slightly self-conscious in his hospital gown.
Ashley walked around him slowly with her chin in her hands.
“He’s gotta go on a diet,” she said matter-of-factly. “His legs are nice. Once
he shaves them, he’ll be just fine from a distance, don’t you think?”
“Shave my legs?” Sandy asked. “Nobody said anything about
that.”
“Didn’t you read your contract? If I’m not mistaken, it
specifies full body waxing for the duration of the series.” Darla knew she was
not mistaken, since she had written the contract herself.
What else was in that contract, Sandy wondered, as the
enormity of his predicament began to sink in. These people were expecting him
to pass as a girl. At least it wasn’t full time, he said to himself, as he
watched them study him like a department store mannequin.
“Let me see you walk across the room,” Ashley said. Without
protest, Sandy walked a few steps and turned around to face her.
“He’s gonna need some coaching,” Ashley said.
“I know, don’t worry. Starting next week, we have him
scheduled for three hours a day with Max Perscheid. He used to be one of the
top choreographers on Broadway before he semi-retired to Malibu. We’re going
to use his beach house as our base of operations for the next few weeks.”
“Base of operations? For what?”
“ While you’re learning how to surf, Sandy will be learning
how to be a girl.”
* * *
Two weeks later, Ashley Vaughn caught her first wave, and Sandy
Lane wore his first dress. He had subjected himself to hours of ballet and
deportment lessons, tolerated the agonizing removal of all of his body hair,
watched as his mop of blonde hair was styled into a layered shag, suffered
through manicures and pedicures, and endured the piercing of his ears. The
crash diet Darla Palmer put him on resulted in the loss of almost ten pounds
from his already skinny frame, and when he put on a girl’s swim suit for the
first time, he passed inspection with flying colors. Some strategic padding, a
lot of makeup, and he was ready for his action scenes as Pepper Reef, the lead character
in Wet Girls.
Meanwhile, Ashley was working diligently at her surfing.
The studio had paid a full-time instructor to work with her, but she was
getting nowhere until Sandy took her aside one day and asked her to describe
her problems. After he listened for a few minutes, he told her to meet him
down on the beach right after lunch. When she got there, he was waiting for
her, dressed in his powder blue woman’s wetsuit, with a longer surfboard than
she was used to. In their wetsuits, they looked like identical twins, and Sandy
swam beside her as she paddled out beyond the shore break.
Ashley was exhausted from the effort, and Sandy made her
wait and rest for a few minutes before he pointed her board towards the shore.
“Just hang there until I say ‘Go,’” Sandy told her, and Ashley did as she was
told. When Sandy saw a perfect swell approaching, he gave her board a mighty
shove and shouted, ‘Go, go!’” Ashley paddled like crazy, and as Sandy had
instructed her, she waited until her board became rock steady as it caught the
wave. When she tried to get up, it was as simple as standing on a sidewalk.
She was laughing and shouting in pure, unadulterated joy as she rode the wave
almost to shore.
The entire crew was applauding them from the beach. It was
not necessary for Ashley to become a proficient surfer, but the network
desperately wanted a few shots of her standing on a board to weave into the
scenes that Sandy would perform. Sandy was rewarded with a hug and a kiss from
Ashley when he caught up with her. Although the kiss was purely platonic, a seed
had been planted, and it began to grow from that moment.
As for Sandy’s dress, a scene in the opening episode of Wet
Girls called for Pepper Reef to run into the surf in her street clothes to rescue
a drowning child. Sandy spent hours in makeup and wardrobe, getting fitted
with a short sundress and high heeled sandals. Ashley was decked out in an
identical outfit, and Sandy milled around awkwardly in his dress and heels as Ashley
filmed her scenes. When the time came for Pepper Reef to dash into the surf, Sandy
took over for Ashley, kicking off his sandals and running through the waves as
the cameras rolled. When he carried the child out of the water, Ashley took
over again, and Sandy had fun getting her good and wet before the cameras
started filming again.
The shooting schedule was incredibly hectic, and Sandy
barely had time to think about the crazy way his life was going. Up at four
o’clock every morning to put on a woman’s swimsuit or wetsuit, hours getting
his hair and makeup done, more hours standing around doing nothing as Ashley
and the other actors filmed their scenes, long breaks spent sitting around in
women’s clothing with Ashley and the other actors, and finally to bed with his reading
assignment for the next day’s shooting.
Sandy and Ashley were too exhausted to spend any quality
time together, but they did come up with an amusing game to help pass the
time. Periodically, Sandy and Ashley would swap trailers, and wait to see how
long it would take the other members of the cast and crew to figure out who was
who. They were getting very good at passing for one another when disaster
struck.
It was the last day of filming for the season, and Sandy was
scheduled to perform a particularly hairy stunt that had him diving off Santa
Monica Pier to disable a runaway Jet Ski. Ashley insisted on taking his place
on the pier, thinking it would be fun to dive off it into Santa Monica Bay before
Sandy finished the scene. But when she hit the water, a sudden swell tossed
her against a piling, and something snapped.
It took a few seconds before the crew realized that
something was wrong, and it wasn’t until Sandy dove off the pier that they knew
what was happening. By then, it was almost too late. Sandy grabbed Ashley and
towed her towards shore until a small boat was found to rescue her. It didn’t
take the paramedics long to diagnose her condition. The impact with the pier
had broken her left leg in two places.
Darla Palmer was beside herself. They had one more scene to
film with Ashley, involving her in a close-up with another actor. Sandy was
sitting around his trailer with a hangdog expression when she came in without
knocking.
“How could you have let her do that?” Darla shouted.
“She’s a big girl, she does what she wants to.”
“Well, you should have stopped her.”
“She’s the star. I’m just a stunt double, remember?”
“Not any more?”
“What are you talking about? Am I fired?”
“No, you’re not fired, although I’d love to do it. You’ve
just been promoted.”
“Promoted?”
“That’s right. Get off your ass and get into wardrobe.
You’re going to shoot Ashley’s scene for her.”
Sandy froze. He knew what was in the script. “I can’t do
that. I mean, she’s got that big love scene….”
“She doesn’t have that big love scene. You’ve got that big love
scene. Now get going, Missy. It’s going to cost the studio a fortune if we
can’t wrap this week.”
“You can’t make me do this.”
“Read your contract.”
* * *
Sandy was in a trance as the minions went to work on him. The
final episode of the season ended with Pepper Reef going to an exclusive Beverly
Hills restaurant with her dream guy, played by a journeyman actor named Randy
Romaine. Randy was the consummate professional, and Darla had no worries about
him. The question was whether Sandy could pull off the switch.
For the first time, he was going to have to really pass as a
woman. He had gotten by for months wearing wetsuits and swimsuits, never
spending more than a few minutes before the camera, and never opening his
mouth. They would be able to dub Ashley’s voice over his during final editing,
but the acting would be all his. Sandy had proven that he could fool the cast
and crew, but would he be able to fool the camera?
It began with a complete body waxing. Sandy was used to
these by now, but this time they went to special lengths, including his face
and neck, followed by a meticulous tweezing of his eyebrows. His hair was
washed, shampooed and styled into Ashley Vaughn’s trademark shag, his nails
were polished and buffed, and his makeup session was far more intense than
anything he had previously experienced.
Other than the one dress Sandy had put on during the first
day of filming, he had never worn anything but beach clothes. At Darla’s
request, his new wardrobe was laid out for him in his trailer, and it was with
trepidation that he closed the door behind him while the crew waited
impatiently outside.
For the first time, he was introduced to women’s lingerie.
His panties were specially padded to give him a rounded ass and to flatten his
front, much like his custom-made swimsuits and wetsuits, and his padded bra
gave him the same illusion of cleavage. But his slip and stockings were like
nothing he’d ever experienced. He could feel his penis struggling in confusion
as he slid the delicate nylons up his smooth legs, and he almost had an orgasm
when he stepped into his lacy slip and pulled the delicious fabric against his
sensitive skin.
Pepper Reef’s little black dress had a zipper in the back
and a clasp at the top. Sandy managed to get the dress over his head without
mussing his hair, and he tugged it into place before reaching back to zip and
fasten it. He wondered how women who were not professional athletes ever
managed to dress themselves. Then he sat down to put on his black 3” pumps.
His stockinged feet slid into them nicely, and he took a few practice steps to
make sure he would be able to handle them. For some reason, he felt completely
comfortable in his new clothing, and a strange inner peace came over him as he
stood before the full length mirror and surveyed the finished product. The
girl looking back at him was a TV star.
When Sandy opened the door to his trailer and stepped
confidently outside, he was greeted by cheers from the crew. A wardrobe person
fussed with him briefly, adding some jewelry and switching his earrings to
match, and then he was taken to the sound stage and shown his place on the
set. The scene had been hastily rewritten to eliminate most of Pepper’s
lines. All she had to do was look beautiful while Randy Romaine told her how
much he loved her, and let him kiss her as the camera faded to black. They
pulled it off in one take.
* * *
After filming wrapped, Sandy hung around for the cast and
crew party in his dress, enjoying the compliments while he reveled in the
sensations of being a pretty girl. But there was someplace else he needed to
be, so he said his goodbyes and hopped into a studio limousine for the short
ride to the hospital where Ashley was recovering.
He was mobbed by total strangers when he got out of the
limousine, and it took him a few seconds before he realized that they thought
he was Ashley Vaughn. He signed some autographs with a girlish scribble before
he excused himself as politely as he could, limiting himself to a few short
phrases in Ashley’s soft voice. He knew her room number, and he stole quietly
down the hallway to her door.
Ashley was lying in bed, where she had cried herself to
sleep. Her leg was in a cast, held up by two cables a few inches above her
bed. Sandy closed the door behind him and stole quietly to her bedside.
“Hey,” he said in his own voice.
She looked up, and at first she didn’t realize it was him.
Then the biggest smile came over her face, and she started to giggle
uncontrollably as he did a curtsy for her. “Look at you!” she said.
“Are you mad at me?”
“Why should I be mad at you? You saved my life.”
“I stole your big love scene today.”
“So I heard. I couldn’t believe it when Darla told me you
were going to go through with it. You saved her life, too.”
“All in a day’s work for a fearless stunt double.”
“Did you have fun?”
“He’s a good kisser.”
“Oh yeah? Come here, Missy. I’ll show you what a good kiss
is.” Sandy leaned over her, and she kissed him tenderly. He kissed her back
the same way, feeling a sweet spike of arousal as his penis ached for the woman
he had become. When they finally broke it off, she said, “I’ve mussed your
lipstick. Here, let me fix it.” She took a corner of her sheet and wiped the
smudges off his beautiful face.
Sandy pulled a chair up next to the bed and sat down,
carefully crossing his legs after he smoothed his dress beneath himself. “Are
you as weirded out by this as I am?” he asked her.
“Yeah, but I’m loving it! I was so bummed before you came
in.”
“How long are you in here?”
“At least a week, and then it’s another five weeks before I
get the cast off. I’m going to need some physical therapy, but I should be
ready to go for the next season.”
“What makes you think the network’s going to renew us?”
“Darla swore me to secrecy. She wanted to cheer me up, I
guess. It’s going to be announced next week You know what that means, don’t
you?”
“What?”
“You’re gong to have to be a girl for another whole year.”
“No way.”
“I’m sure it’s in your contract. You know, that contract
you never read.”
Sandy was secretly thrilled at the prospect. “Aren’t you
worried that I’ll steal some more of your scenes?”
“Try it, and I’ll tell Buster Cruz where he can find you.
You might just wind up a girl permanently.”
They bantered through the night like sisters, nourishing the
seed that was planted the day Ashley caught her first wave, and Sandy wore his
first dress.
