"Okay, girls, that was great! Cheer like that tonight and the boys will roll over the other team!" their cheerleading coach called. "Go enjoy the mall and we'll see you back here in two hours."
There was some general cheering and woo-ing and high fives among the cheerleaders. Sarah clapped her hands for attention. "Raise your hands if you've got a car and you're driving over. Ok, everyone's got a seat? The plan is the same as always, ladies. A little food and a little shopping, no one gets left behind. Meet up at the main entrance!" The girls all began heading to the parking lot from the field. Sarah took Jon's arm and began pulling her over to her car. "You, of course, are with me, Jon," she smiled sweetly.
"Isn't anyone else joining us?" Jon asked, looking over her shoulder at the others as the team dispersed. She still had a happy smile on her face that she couldn't seem to shake off.
"Usually I'd have a few, but you and I have a couple special tasks that we need to take care of tonight, and we wouldn't be able to do those with extra riders," Sarah smiled and gave Jon a wink.
"Oh. Great?" Jon craned her neck to look back at the field and see which football players were out there stretching together.
Sarah turned. "What are you looking for? Karyn can't possibly be here."
Jon blushed. "Oh, I was, um, ... looking for Matt?"
"What?" Sarah's face scrunched up, then she looked more closely at Jon through her hidden glasses, before her eyes widened and she began to laugh. "Oh, Jon, you got yourself a boyfriend, and you're pining over him? That's adorable!"
"Shut up!" Jon protested, but she couldn't keep a happy little grin off her face.
Sarah was delighted. "I don't even know how that works? He's the boyfriend for both you and Kaitlyn? That's going to be so hard to break to Karyn!"
Jon simply got in the passenger side of the car. She didn't know how to feel or what to say. Jon and Karyn and their friendship were still at the center of her identity, right? Somewhere in there? Under the cacophony chorus and all the other emotions that had been flooding in since Sarah took over?
Sarah got behind the wheel of the car and pulled out of the school parking lot. She turned on the radio and half-sang along to a pop song, knowing only some words with full confidence and making sounds that might have been the words for the rest.
"... I don't actually know where we're going now." Jon said. She racked her brain. "I know you changed my history so I've been a cheerleader for a while, but some of the rituals are less clear than the cheers and routines themselves."
"Strange what magic picks and chooses, I guess," Sarah commented. "Well then! The team always has a short practice right after school on game days. If we're the away team, we go to the mall for a quick food court and then hurry to the other school. If we're the home team, we go over to the mall for the food court and for a shopping ritual called 'worst skirt'. Everyone has ten minutes to find the worst skirt, and we all show each other and vote. Whoever found the skirt that's actually the best of all the options loses, and she has to wear what gets voted as the worst skirt to the party after the game."
"... that actually sounds a little fun," Jon smiled.
"See, I told you that you just needed a little team spirit!" Sarah beamed. "You'll love it!" She turned off the main road a turn too early. "It's just too bad that I still have to make things worse for you, because you didn't choose to join the cheerleading team like I asked you to."
Jon's head snapped up and immediately stared at Sarah. "You gave me monster boobs and that WASN'T the punishment?"
"Oh, no, of course not. You were always going to get some beautiful breasts of your own. That they happened to be E-cups is just the way things turned out."
Jon tried to seethe, but Sarah's commands still had her smiling. "You changed my whole identity to a girl!"
"No," Sarah corrected with a smirk. "Wendy did that to you. And Kaitlyn gave you the boyfriend. I've actually been rather tame besides making you follow my every order." She pulled into a parking lot. "I gues that ends now, though!"
Jon looked up. THE PUSSYCAT, read a large garish sign in 60's style font. A small, sad building with extremely dark windows sat in front of them.
"... a strip club?" Jon began to panic.
"Calm down, Jon," Sarah ordered, and Jon immediately felt her stress subside, entirely against whatever Jon-based will she still had. "Let's go inside."
Sarah opened the car door and got out. Jon dutifly did the same on her side, and followed Sarah inside. The lights were low in a small antechamber, where a tired-looking man was sitting by a door to the main club.
Looking their way, his eyes narrowed to slits. "Hey, absolutely not. You kids get out of here, right now. Whatever you're thinking, I don't care. No minors allowed."
Sarah calmly reached into her purse, rummaged around, and pulled out a hundred dollar bill. "We don't need to go inside. We just need to talk to any of your dancers for a minute. If you can bring one over here, this is for you."
The man stared. "Double it."
Sarah took out a second one. "One for now, one for when you return."
The man snatched the first bill away from Sarah, curled his lip a little, then went inside the club. They could hear him shouting while they waited. Jon continued smiling but stared forward at the door.
"I'm not going to have to strip, right?" she murmured, true fear sneaking through her painted smile.
"Of course not, Jon, you heard the man, they don't allow minors in here," Sarah scoffed. "Now stand still, smile, and don't say anything unless I tell you to." Jon felt her body seize up and her mouth shut tight, locked behind the required smile."
Another minute or so later, the man came back with a woman draped in a robe. The man snatched the other bill from Sarah, then retreated back inside the club. The woman wore bold makeup on a tired face and had her arms crossed with clearly no patience for this situation. "Yeah?" she sighed. "What do you kids want?"
Sarah put on a fake apologetic smile. "We're so sorry to bother you, we just needed your help for a brief second, and please, let me pay you for your time." She pulled out yet another hundred dollar bill and handed it to the woman, who warily took it. "Please, we just need you to look at my friend here for a minute."
The woman's eyes scanned up and down Jon. "Yeah? What about her? She's got some pretty nice tits, if that's what you want to know. Face ain't great, but most of the men in here don't care too much about that compared to what's on her chest."
Sarah raised a finger to her mouth. "That's an excellent point. Her face is a little too manly, isn't it? No, actually, we wanted to ask you something else. Would you believe that this poor lovely girl is named Jon?"
The woman's shoulders dropped. "Oh, honey, that just won't do. What the fuck were your parents thinking? You need a better name, kiddo." She sighed. "Here, copy off me." She reached into her head and pulled a glistening silver wisp out, then gently patted Jon on the face.
Jon couldn't move, couldn't stop smiling, but inside her head, the male Jon at the core felt a burst of glitter and lights begin shining around, moving in time to the cacophony of voices.
Sarah smiled. "That was exactly what we were hoping to hear. Thank you so much, we were so sorry to bother you." She turned to Jon. "Come along now." They both turned and left the club, leaving the woman standing there, more than a little confused.
They both got back into Sarah's car before Sarah turned and leaned over, wicked glee in her eyes. "And now tell me, who do I have the great pleasure of sitting next to?"
Jon's mouth opened, and her enforced-perky voice offered, "Sarah, you know my name. It's Diamond Rose. I mean, it's Diamond Rose. No, it's Diamond-" she stumbled over her words. "Sarah!"
Sarah grinned, delightedly. "Now aren't you sorry you didn't just join the cheerleading team when I asked you to?"
