Flanders Nickels has just had the time of his life going trick-or-treating in a cheerleader uniform as a young adult. Along comes a foxy Christian gal to his apartment who was sent by God. Her name is ‘Fair Lassie Lisa,’ a.k.a ‘Gravel.’ And she must help this unsaved crossdresser make the right decisions in three tests from God for him.
THE FAIRY TALE PRINCESS
By Mr. Morgan P. McCarthy
He was alone in his bedroom, sitting on his wooden floor, with a true treasure of treasures on the floor before him. His eyes beheld a one-time mystery of mysteries now revealed unto him. This true glory of glories had finally become all his own. What was this icon of icons? It was a size 13/14 girls’ cheerleader skirt indeed the apotheosis of drag queen apparel. It was a box-pleated maroon and white cheerleader skirt with twelve maroon main pleats and with twelve white contrasting pleats. Simply put, it was like nothing that he had ever had before in his twenty-nine years. He had found it for himself in a Varsity, Incorporated cheerleader uniform fashion catalog when he was shopping for the best Halloween outfit that he could find for himself. He went ahead and ordered it, and here it was right now. He had also ordered a cheerleader sweater and a cheerleader chenille emblem for the sweater, but they would come soon in two later shipments. The deep maroon of the main pleats shone in a most alluring sheen. The bright white of the contrasting pleats shone in a most pure radiance. Wondering upon whether such a garment as a cheerleader’s skirt had a built-in pant to it, he looked in-
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side of it and found the skirt empty inside all the way through. After having a good look upon the stitching of the outer side of this cheerleader skirt in its smoothness and its uniformity and its aestheticism, he then looked upon the inside pattern of this same cheerleader skirt, and he found the inside stitching to be instead a little on the rough side and not smooth and uniform and aesthetic. That must be how a cheerleader skirt has to be in the inside in order to make it so good on the outside. And after he finished adoring this with his eyes, then he went on to adore this with his fingers. And when he was done adoring this with his fingers, he then went and put it on for his first time, thus entering a brand new world in his life. Woe, the cheerleader skirt was a little too big for him! No matter, he simply went ahead and sewed it in a little at the side so that it would fit. (Mom had taught him how to sew with needle and thread when he was still living at home). Lo, now the cheerleader skirt fit him just fine. Flanders Nickels had now discovered the best thing that drag had to offer him in this cheerleader skirt.
Not too many days later, the chenille emblem came to his apartment. It had a girl’s first name on it in five big letters of maroon in a gray background. And the girl’s name was “HEIDI.” And Heidi was a real girl whom he had a crush on and who had a crush on him. But Heidi was his girl who got away. He would honor ‘his’ Heidi with this chenille emblem upon his cheerleader sweater soon to come.
Then, a few days after that, the cheerleader sweater came to him in the mail. It was a long-sleeved cheerleader sweater with cuffs and with random fields of maroon and with random fields of white throughout its pattern front and back and down the sleeves, all highlighted with gray stripes.
As enthralling as the cheerleader skirt was to him, this cheerleader sweater was a most worthy complement to it. And he at once this day spent most of the rest of his evening sewing by hand his chenille emblem in the right place upon the cheerleader sweater. And then he dared to enter his exciting new life further by putting on his cheerleader sweater for his first time along with the
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cheerleader skirt. Behold, though this cheerleader sweater were also size 13/14, it still fit him perfectly! How sensuously comfortable he now felt in his middle with the bottom maroon hem of this new cheerleader sweater covering the top maroon hem of this new cheerleader skirt.
How delightful and wondrous had been for him these past two or three years to go to the high school football games and the high school basketball games to look at all the cheerleaders in their exciting uniforms. Now, around Halloween 1990, he was the cheerleader. And all of east Green Bay was going to see him as this cheerleader when he would go door-to-door trick-or-treating all by himself. His Elm Street and its neighborhood had lots of houses for him to show off his new outfit. What a way to get candy. And at age twenty-nine, he still liked candy. But as a straight guy he loved cross dressing. And this Halloween the timid drag queen was to go outside as he was. This was going to be the most daring thing he had ever done. And he was nervous. And he was excited. Both at once.
The spirit of exhibitionism was inherent in this cross dresser’s heart. But it was not an exhibitionism of flesh. It was an exhibitionism of material. He had no roommate in his apartment here on Elm Street in this upper apartment with which he could show himself to in this. He had no girlfriend in life who might say good things to him about his new outfit. He had no friends to come over and visit him here and see the new Flanders. But he did have a new neighbor man in the other upper apartment here on this second floor who had become his new friend. His door was right next to Flanders’s door and at a ninety-degree angle in the wall. His name was “Dan,” and he had three cats in his apartment. He could show Dan his brave new cheerleader outfit. And he rallied his courage and went about to do that. It was nighttime, and all of Flanders’s lights were on, and he went out into the front hallway at the top of the carpeted stairs and knocked on Dan’s door, and then Flanders went behind his own bedroom door to hide for just a moment until Dan came in. Dan opened his apartment door, saw no one in the hall, and Flanders bade him to come into his apartment. Then, from behind his bedroom door, Flanders said, “Brace yourself, Dan. I am dressed for Halloween.” And then Flanders
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presented himself, coming out into the living room to greet his neighbor. And this neighbor man did not mind what Flanders was dressed in! And he stayed a while and chatted with Flanders. And in came his three welcome cats. Flanders was sitting upon his wooden chair, and as he and Dan conversed, the three cats repeatedly passed by underneath Flanders’s chair where he was sitting, their feline backs brushing up against Flanders’s pleats on both sides of his chair where they hung. Flanders liked that and would never forget it.
Dan then asked Flanders, “Who’s Heidi, Flanders?”
Oh, yes. That dear name on his chenille emblem!
Flanders looked down upon that pretty name and ran his hand across it. And he said, “She’s the pretty girl who almost became my pretty girlfriend, Dan.”
“Flanders, you should have gone after her,” said Dan.
“You’re right, Dan,” said Flanders. “I should have gone after her.”
“Well at least you have something to remember her by,” said the neighbor.
It was Halloween early evening now, daylight on October 31, 1990. It had officially started with Flanders Nickels stepping out onto his back upper balcony and looking down upon the wooden steps that led to the ground. And it had finished up now in the front at his neighbors’ apartment below as his last trick-or-treat stop. And between the former and the latter, he was in his full Halloween costume—the skirt and the sweater and the black mask and the black witch hat and the white socks and the penny loafers. Not a lot of people were at home to give out candy to this old trick-or-treater. The weather was not too cold for Flanders. And he got the best compliment ever when someone called out from a passing car, “Nice skirt!” Another comment was from a young one who said to another about Flanders, “He’s a guy.” And an old man at one door started to say interesting things about his school and their cheerleaders, which Flanders was most glad to hear. And Flanders filled up his brown paper
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lunch bag with trick-or-treat candy. And even now that he was home Halloween continued on for this avid drag queen even though his trick-or-treating was done. In his Halloween costume, he was blessed with going up and down his front stairway giving out candy to trick-or-treat kids who came to his building at the front door below. That was fun, too. And that Halloween night, alone and giddy with
his cheerleaders’ uniform on, Flanders Nickels declared out loud to himself, “For now on I shall make every day Halloween for myself no matter what anybody might think.” He was now in for the night.
Just then Flanders heard a strange woman’s pretty voice call out to him in here from out back beyond his back door, inquiring within, “Is the master home?” Flanders turned to this unexpected visitor and saw a woman standing upon his back balcony and looking through his screen door.
He came up to this door in surprise and some expectation and with much curiosity. Who would come and visit a loner like himself up here? He opened his door to this woman and saw a most comely young woman probably about his own age and about his own height and about his own weight. Her long straight brown hair was wispy and blowing about her head quite attractively. Her brown eyes looked to have God Himself in her. Her form was slender and well-built. And she had on a prom gown of the style of these days. Her prom dress had a black bodice and black sleeves that reached to her elbows, and it had a white skirt portion that reached to some inches below her knees. What a pretty prom gown! But what an even prettier woman!
“Hi, Miss,” he said, not sure what to say to so foxy a gal as this gal.
She asked him now, “Are you the master of this apartment, sir?”
This fox of a lady saw him in his cheerleader uniform, and she did not mind this, either. And he answered her. “I live here, ma’am.”
“I believe that I came to the right place, sir,” said this stranger of a woman.
Carried away by the comeliness of this fascinating young woman, Flanders asked her, “Are you an angel?”
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In flirt, this young woman spun in place before him, showing him her prom gown big black bow tie just above her bottom and her long zipper that ran from top to bottom in back. She had on also black pumps and black tights. And she held a purse in her hand with long straps that went over her shoulders. And she then went on to answer Flanders’s question, “I can be an angel at times.”
“Do come in, if you would,” he said, and a real beautiful girl came into his home for his first time. Then he asked her, “Are you a born-again Christian then?”
“Going forward for Christ sometimes; going backward on Christ other times,” she did say. “But always getting back up and fighting for Jesus once again.”
Doubting this foxy lady’s mortality, he asked her, “Are you a woman?”
“I am a real girl,” she said.
He then pulled out a chair for her and she sat down upon it, and he sat down at his chair; and man and woman sat down across from each other at his living room table.
Then she said, “My name ‘Fair Lassie Lisa.’ But you can call me ‘Gravel.’”
“I am Flanders,” he said, “Flanders Arckery Nickels.”
He saw Gravel staring upon his Halloween costume. “Pardon my cheerleader uniform, Gravel,” he said.
“Oh, excuse me, Flanders. I was just admiring it,” said Fair Lassie Lisa. “Did this cheerleader uniform once belong to a Heidi?”
“No. It is all my own,” said Flanders.
“I see her name on the sweater,” said Fair Lassie Lisa.
“In memory of the girl who was the closest thing that I ever got to being my girlfriend,” said Flanders.
“Was she pretty?” asked Gravel.
“Yes. And she actually thought of me as handsome,” said Flanders.
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“You thought of her as cute, and she thought of you as cute, Flanders,” summed up Fair Lassie Lisa.
“Both at once!” exclaimed Flanders. “How often does a girl like that come along in a guy’s life?”
“Why did she leave you, Flanders?” asked Fair Lassie Lisa.
“Because I took too long before asking her out,” said Flanders Nickels. “After a while another guy who was not afraid to ask her out came along, and I lost Heidi before I could even have her.”
“I tell you,” said Fair Lassie Lisa. “You guys. You think that we gals will wait forever.”
“I guess that a gentleman ought never to keep a lady waiting,” he said in self-effacement, and Gravel and he laughed together in lightheartedness.
“I brought the two of us something extra special for our time together here on Halloween night,” said Fair Lassie Lisa. And she reached into her purse and pulled out a most unusual hardcover book and did set it upon the table. On its cover were the words “Holy Bible,” and the words “Authorized King James Version” underneath that. Flanders had never seen the Good Book look like this. It was a small book and it was a big book both at the same time. It was about four inches tall and about four inches wide and about four inches deep. This Holy Bible was quite a cube of a book indeed!
“Where did you get that?” asked Flanders in fascination upon it.
“I always had it,” she said. “There was never a time when I did not have it.”
“Wily Gravel from somewhere I know not, you tease me so,” said Flanders.
“We women are clever,” said Gravel in ambiguity. And his heart was drawn to this mysterious woman.
“I do not know anything about you, Gravel, but I have a feeling that you know something about me,” he said in happy and intelligent surmise.
“You are right, Flanders. I know that you need Christ and do not yet have Him,” said Fair
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Lassie Lisa.
“That is true,” said Flanders, attentive to her words. “I do not know anything about God.”
“You need to become a born-again believer for the good of your eternal soul,” said Gravel.
“Do you know anything else about me, Gravel?” he asked.
Thoughts came upon her eyes; she shook her head in negation; she said, “I do not think that God told me anything else about you before I came here, Flanders. Just that you need the Saviour.”
She then opened up her literally cubical King James Bible and began to search for Scripture.
“What are you looking for, Gravel?” asked Flanders, eager to hear this lady to read to him from this Book with her voice.
“John 1:10-12,” she told him. “Ah. Here it all is.” And she read these three verses out loud to him: “He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:”
“Who is This?” asked Flanders upon the Personage of these three cogent and powerful Bible verses.
“The Lord Jesus Christ,” said Fair Lassie Lisa in edification.
“You mean ‘God.’ Don’t you?” asked Flanders Nickels.
“’Immanuel’…’Emmanuel’…’God With Us,’” said Gravel in names and in definition of names of Christ Jesus the Lord.
“From hearing those Scripture verses that you have just read to me, it sounds like this Christ made this planet Earth and that He lived in this planet Earth and that this planet Earth did not even know Him, Gravel. Is that true?”
“Do you know Him, Flanders?” asked Lisa.
“No. Not me. Not really as you do, Gravel,” he replied.
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“See what I mean?” she asked.
“Yeah. If this Jesus made the world, then He also made me. And I do not know Him for anything,” said Flanders.
“The Gentiles of the world knew Him not, and the Jews of the world received Him not,” said Gravel in most welcome preaching.
“The Jews are the Israelites. Aren’t they, Gravel?” he asked.
“Yes. The chosen nation of God Himself,” said Fair Lassie Lisa.
“The Bible verse you read seems to call this chosen nation Israel ‘his own.’” said Flanders.
“Uh huh!” she asserted in preaching. “He was their prophesied Messiah to come. They all willingly chose with their wicked heart not to accept Him.”
“Was He the One Who died on the cross?” asked Flanders.
“Yes! And the Jews did that to Him. And the Gentiles did that to Him. And all we sinners did that to Him,” said Fair Lassie Lisa. “He willingly laid down his life for you and me, Flanders, so that we can get saved from our sins.”
“In my own way, Gravel, I did that to Him,” confessed Flanders Nickels in spiritual awakening.
“And I, too, Flanders,” confessed this born-again prom gown lady.
“And that last verse that you read to me, Gravel, something about believing.” he said.
“Yes! Yes! All you need to do for salvation is to believe in Jesus,” she continued her good sermon to this searching cheerleader of a guy. “Born-again believers go to Heaven; those who are not born-again believers go to Hell.”
“I need only to receive this Jesus into my heart, and I am saved,” he said in seeking this new assurance.
“Born-again men Christians are called ‘sons of God,’” said Fair Lassie Lisa. “And we born-again women Christians are called ‘daughters of God.’”
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“What can I do to become a child of God and be on my way to Heaven someday?” asked Flanders.
“Just humble yourself before God, realize that you cannot save yourself, and ask God to save your lost soul for you, and He will save you,” promised the prom dress lady.
“Does that work for us cross dressers like myself, too, Gravel?” asked the Halloween cheerleader.
“It is written, Flanders, ‘Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.’ I Timothy 2:4,” recited Fair Lassie Lisa to him.
“Transgender cheerleaders can get saved, too, then,” said Flanders.
She then searched more scripture, said, “Now I see it, Flanders,” and read to him some from I Corinthians 6: 9-11: “Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived:…, nor effeminate…, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.”
“I must look effeminate in my drag,” said Flanders, seeing himself now as others did. “I thought instead that I looked feminine in my drag.”
“Would you like to pray and get saved right now?” asked Fair Lassie Lisa.
“How did you go about and get saved from your own sins yourself, Gravel?” he asked.
“Before I was saved, I was a material girl,” confided Gravel.
“Madonna had a song called ‘Material Girl,’” said Flanders.
“Material girls are definitely women of the world,” said Fair Lassie Lisa. “It is written, ‘Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.’ I John 2;15.”
“What was it that you were into that made you a bad material girl? What were you doing
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wrong in life? What did you used to do before you found Christ that Christ did not like?” asked Flanders Nickels.
“I went to all the malls and to all the department stores and to all the clothing stores and feasted on shopping sprees,” said Fair Lassie Lisa.
“You liked to buy women’s clothes also, it seems,” said Flanders. “Surely it was all right for you, Gravel, because you are a woman.”
“Yeah, but shopping was more important to me than God,” confessed Fair Lassie Lisa. “This young woman before you now made little gods out of skirts and dresses.”
“And by the ‘love of the world’ that that Bible verse condemns, do you mean your happiness at stores and clothing racks, Gravel?” he asked.
“Yeah,” she said.
“But did not God create the world? Is it not right to love the world that God has created?” he asked.
“Oh, the world and what the Scriptures mean about the world,” she said in sentence fragment. “In this context, what the Bible means about the world is what we Christians call ‘the world and its system,’ and that means ‘the values and the doctrines and the thinking of the world of the lost.’ We Christians are not to love the world in its context of the unsaved out there living without God. We believers are called out of the world to live for Christ.”
“Loving this world as a creation of God must be a different thing and a good thing from loving this world as its system then,” said Flanders Nickels.
“Yes.” said Fair Lassie Lisa. “Which I could not understand when still in my sins.”
“It sounds like you made false idols every time you went shopping for clothes,” said Flanders.
“It is written in Exodus 20:3, the first commandment of the ten commandments, ‘Thou shalt have no other gods before me,’” recited Fair Lassie Lisa.
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“You loved skirts and dresses more than you did the Good Lord, Gravel,” he said in hasty rebuke.
“Flanders, do you love cheerleader uniforms more than you do your Good Maker?” she replied back to him in no subtle chastisement.
“Ouch, Gravel,” he said. “I should talk.”
“I was lost in my sins and could not help myself,” said Fair Lassie Lisa. “I needed the Holy Spirit to talk to me about my desperate need to get right with Christ.
“I am most surely lost in my sins, Gravel,” he said. “Where can I find this Holy Spirit?”
“I am a Christian,” said Fair Lassie Lisa. “I can help you to find God.”
“Isn’t that the work of angels?” he asked.
“God does not usually use angels to win the souls of people,” she said. “In I Peter 1:12, it says about salvation, ‘…: which things the angels desire to look into.’ God never died for the angels. God died for fallen mankind. Hence you and I can understand the Gospel in a way that even angels cannot understand the Gospel.”
“What is the Gospel, Gravel?” he asked her.
“It is the greatest act of history—that Jesus died for our sins and arose from the dead on the third day,” said Fair Lassie Lisa.
“I can comprehend that,” said Flanders.
“You comprehend the Gospel in your head. Now you need to feel the Gospel in your heart, Flanders,” said Fair Lassie Lisa.
“How do I do that, Gravel?” he asked.
“Before a soul-winner can get a man saved, first that soul-winner needs to get that man to know that he is lost.” said Gravel.
“Is that what happened for you when your soul-winner won your soul, Gravel?” asked Flanders.
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“Yes, O Flanders,” said Fair Lassie Lisa. “And it happened on the day that I first bought this black and white prom gown that you see on me here and now.”
“What did this man and God tell you that ended up getting you saved?” he asked her.
“In his audible voice this man said to me, ‘Milady, your brand new prom dress never died for your sins.’ And in the Lord’s still small voice the Holy Spirit said to me, ‘Jesus died for your sins, O young lady,’” told Fair Lassie Lisa all about her so great conversion.
“Then what happened, Gravel?” asked Flanders Nickels.
“This good man then led me line-by-line through what he called ‘the sinners’ prayer.’ and I became a born-again Christian,” said Gravel. “That is how I became a believer.”
“Where did it happen for you?” asked Flanders, very interested in this Saviour.
“It was in the parking lot of St. Vincent de Paul Thrift Store,” she said. “When I bought my new prom gown at the time, I decided to keep it on as I went through the checkout lane and then go home with it on for the rest of the day. This good man who would become my father in the faith took one look at me there in the parking lot and gave me a salvation tract and began to preach to me the good news of salvation. And now you know the rest of my story.”
“Did you ever see him again?” asked Flanders.
“Uh uh,” she said in negation.
“What was his name?” asked Flanders.
“He never told me,” said Gravel.
“He must have been a mystery fellow,” said Flanders.
“He was and always will be,” said Fair Lassie Lisa.
“You are like my mystery lady,” he said to her.
“Oh, but you know my name, Flanders.” said Gravel.
“Lisa, would you lead a lost drag queen like myself to this Christ if you would?” asked Flanders
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in great sober-mindedness of will.
“I would be honored to, Flanders,” said Fair Lassie Lisa. “Let us bow our heads and pray. Just repeat after me in this prayer. And then all will be well for your eternal soul.”
“But what about my cheerleader’s uniform, Gravel?” he asked.
“Every sinner needs to come to Christ as he is,” said Gravel. “God loves you and wants to save you right now no matter what you might have on when you pray the sinners’ prayer.”
“I suddenly want to take this off and put on something more appropriate when I come to God like this,” said Flanders in sincerity.
“Flanders, doing that right now would not be wise,” said Fair Lassie Lisa with her wisdom of soul-winning of some years.
“But how come?” he asked.
“Flanders, if you are about to get saved, never tell God, ‘Not quite now. But later.’ You see, if you tell me and God at this point of time that you promise to get saved later, the Devil will see to it that your later will never come. Satan can make someone call you on the phone. Satan can make a visitor come to your apartment. Satan can make something go wrong that will require your immediate attention. And somehow your sinners’ prayer will not happen as you planned it to happen. And even in your good and sincere intentions to make your self presentable to the holy God for when you pray to Him with me at this table, well, the Devil loves you to think that. In Isaiah 55:6, God’s Word says this: ‘Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near:’ Now is the acceptable time. Now is the day of salvation.”
“Whoa!” said Flanders fearful of the old Devil who still owned his eternal soul. Then Flanders went and asked,“But what if, after I get saved, that I go and put this on again and sin all over with drag once again?”
“Now is not the time to worry about that, Flanders,” said Gravel. “Let God take care of what
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you may choose to do with your cheerleader uniform later on in His time and in His way. There is no sin that a born-again Christian can commit that will take away his salvation that God has given him.”
“Amen!” said Flanders Nickels for his first time. “Let’s pray and get me saved, pretty Gravel.”
And this was his sinners’ prayer which Fair Lassie Lisa guided him through line-by-line: “Dear Father in Heaven: I have been and still am a sinner over and over again. I am dirty. You are pure. Please forgive me. Please cleanse me. Please help me to repent. I have heard of how You willingly went to the cross to suffer for my sins. I have heard of how You shed Your sinless blood in my place. I have heard of how You died so that I might live. I believe now all that I have heard about you and Calvary. I have also heard of how You rose again from the dead on the third day. And I have heard of how death could not keep You. And I have heard how You live today. I believe now all that I have heard about this Easter miracle. If You would, please look down from Your Heaven now upon me as I pray. I ask You now to become my personal Saviour. And I ask You now to give me eternal life in Heaven. And I ask You to keep me from the fires of Hell. Thank You, Jesus, for this free gift of everlasting life that You give me now just because I ask You for it. In Your name I pray. Amen.”
Mother in the faith and son in the faith looked up now here at this kitchen table. “Amen, O Flanders!” said Fair Lassie Lisa. “That was beautiful!”
“Amen!” said Flanders for his second time in his praises to God and in his first time since becoming a Christian. “That felt good.”
“Are you as glad as I am right now?” asked Fair Lassie Lisa, already knowing that he was.
“Now I am born again just like you, O Gravel,” said Flanders Nickels.
“Yeah! God is good!” said Fair Lassie Lisa.
“God is great, Gravel!” said the new convert.
And brother-and-sister-in-Christ rejoiced together in joy of the Lord.
“Gravel, I’m coming upon ideas that I have not had in my heart since I went and lost fair
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Heidi,” said Flanders Nickels.
“Are your ideas the same as my ideas right now, Flanders?” asked Gravel.
“I was thinking about asking a girl to go out with me for a while,” said Flanders.
“I was thinking about asking a guy to go out with me,” said Fair Lassie Lisa.
“Was that guy one who is just starting out on his walk with Christ?” asked Flanders.
“Uh huh, Flanders,” said Fair Lassie Lisa. “Was that girl one who has already been walking with Christ for some years now?”
“It is,” said Flanders Nickels.
“Go ahead and ask me,” said Gravel.
“Would you like to become my brand new girlfriend, Fair Lassie Lisa?” asked Flanders.
“I do. I surely do,” said Fair Lassie Lisa.
“And I do, also,” said Flanders.
Just then a knocking came upon his apartment door. “Who’s that?” asked Flanders to himself, Gravel here with him at his living room table.
“You have company, Flanders,” said Gravel in equal curiosity.
Flanders left Gravel’s presence to go answer the door. Behold, Heidi herself here actually at his own home, and herself dressed all in black in a Halloween witch costume, witch hat and all!
“Trick or treat, Flanders,” said comely Heidi.
“Heidi, is this you?” asked Flanders. “It is you.” Manifest welcome unto her was abundant in his tone. He quickly ran to his trick-or-treat bag and took out a piece of candy and put it in her trick-or-treat bag.
“Are you glad that I am here, Flanders?” asked Heidi.
“You look bewitching, O girl,” said Flanders to this old crush.
“You look like quite the cheerleader,” said Heidi.
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“And you look like quite the witch,” he said in truthful admiration and praise upon her.
“You have my name on your cheerleader sweater,” said Heidi noticing his chenille emblem.
“Yeah,” he said in reverie.
“You still remember,” said Heidi.
“Yeah. How can a guy forget the girl who was the closest thing that he had ever got to being a girlfriend, O Heidi?” said Flanders.
“I remember,” said Heidi in memories of what almost was.
“I was not expecting you. This is a complete surprise,” said Flanders.
“Oh. I see that you have company,” said Heidi, noticing Gravel now there at the table.
The prom gown girl came to the door to greet the witch girl, “Happy Halloween, Heidi. I am Gravel.”
“Happy Halloween, Gravel,” said Heidi. And the women hugged in a quick little salutation.
“Gravel has just finished leading me to the Lord, Heidi,” said Flanders. “It was the best decision that I have ever made for myself.”
“You found God, Flanders?” asked his old crush.
“Very much so at that, Heidi,” said Flanders.
“Is that a bad thing or a good thing to happen?” asked Heidi in great spiritual darkness. Red flags arose in Flanders’s heart when she asked this question about his salvation. Neither Christian knew what to say to this right now.
Then Fair Lassie Lisa asked, “Would you like to come in and join me and Flanders, Heidi?” And Heidi joined them in the living room and all three sat at the table. Flanders sat at the edge of his table, and Heidi sat at the end of the table to his left, and Gravel sat at the end of the table to his right. The man now had a girl to both sides of himself. And he found himself in a quandary. It was as if he now had two girlfriends and that this day he was to choose which one of the two to have alone for now
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on and which one of the two to have no more for now on.
“I had not expected to see you with another woman, Flanders,” said Heidi. “I ought to have gone ahead on my own in our old grocery store days together and asked you out back then.”
“You were the lady who chose to wait for the man to ask you for a date,” said Flanders.
Gravel spoke up now and asked, “Heidi, have you come back for Flanders?”
Heidi spoke up again and asked, “Flanders, would you ask me for a date now? It is not too late for that for the both of us. Is it?”
Unsure, Flanders said, “Heidi, can’t you see that my Gravel here has just finished leading me to salvation?”
“Are you sure that you had made the right decision in getting this strange salvation that you tell me about?” asked Heidi. More warning signs arose in Flanders’s heart about this very lost young woman.
Fair Lassie Lisa spoke up now and said, “Heidi, ‘…: yea, let God be true, but every man a liar;…’ Romans 3:4.”
Undaunted, the Halloween witch went on and said, “I know what I can do to win you back from this Christian lady, Flanders.”
Gravel spoke now in offense, saying, “That’s enough, Heidi.”
But Heidi went ahead and said it anyway to Flanders, saying, “Flanders, I was thinking just now about a Halloween party that you and I can go to tonight. My workplace is having a Halloween work party for all of its employees. We can bring guests. You and I like my witch costume; I can tell. And you and I like your cheerleader costume; I think that you can tell that from my face. We can go as we are and have a great time. What would be more fun for a guy like yourself who wears the kinds of clothes that I like to wear?”
“You could be my pretty witch, and I could be your doting cheerleader,” said Flanders.
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“Is it a date then?” asked Heidi, very certain now of this conquest.
“No. It is not a date,” exclaimed Flanders.
“I know you, Flanders. I used to flirt with you in our old days as grocery store workers. I know when you mean what you say, and I know when you do not mean what you say,” said Heidi. “You really want a date with me at the Halloween party if nothing else just to show off your drag that you have on to everybody.”
“This time I speak for God,” said Flanders, strong now in the Holy Spirit. “It shall never be a date for us. Your spiritual father is the Devil, the prince of the kingdom of darkness. My spiritual father is Jesus, the light of the world.”
“You really mean that,” said Heidi, her certainty falling down around her from his mighty words from God.
“He does, Heidi,” Gravel rebuked the witch. “He’s a born again Christian now.”
“Born again Christian,” said Heidi in scorn. “Poor Flanders.” This third such censure against his Saviour shot out of the mouth of Heidi stirred Flanders to his final decision between the old flame and the new flame.
And Flanders said, “Get thee behind me, Satan and Heidi. I ask you now to leave and not to come back. I choose Gravel now. And I choose not yourself.”
Heidi, duly rebuked for her temptations, stood up at the table in confusion. She had to go now.
She then walked to his door, opened it, and stood there, her back toward born again man and born again woman.
With the compassion of Jesus, Fair Lassie Lisa called forth, saying to her, “Heidi, would you like to get saved today, too?”
But this only turned the trick-or-treat witch into great offense, and the trick-or-treat witch hurried to get out of this apartment of God, running down the hallway and down the steps and out the
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door of the building.
Flanders and Gravel were alone now once again. “She’s gone now,” said Flanders not in discouragement.
“Are you glad for that?” asked Fair Lassie Lisa.
“I am,” he said.
“For sure, Flanders?” asked Gravel.
“For sure, Gravel,” he said.
“You chose me and not her,” said Fair Lassie Lisa. “I can see the Holy Spirit of God in that.”
“The decision was not that hard to make in the end,” said Flanders.
“You chose Jesus over her,” said Fair Lassie Lisa.
“I chose you also because you are beautiful and she is only pretty,” said Flanders Nickels.
“All men think alike,” said Gravel in flirt.
“Yeah. We do,” he said. And both laughed in the Lord.
Then Fair Lassie Lisa spoke and asked him, “What do you think that God would have you do with your cheerleader uniform when Halloween is all over and done with?”
“I thought that I would continue on with my cross dressing after this Halloween as I always have before this Halloween, Gravel,” he said.
“Do you want to hear a Bible verse that I think might have something to say about that?” she asked.
“I think that I might need to see such a Bible verse, Gravel,” he confessed, humble in the Holy Spirit.
“It is I Corinthians 6:12,” said Fair Lassie Lisa. And she searched the Scriptures and found it.
“May I read it out loud?” he asked. She nodded her head and showed it to him.
He read it to the both of them for himself, “All things are lawful unto me, but all things are
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not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any.”
“What do you think?” asked Fair Lassie Lisa.
“This Bible verse makes my cross dressing sound dubious to me,” he confessed. “Maybe I shouldn’t be like this in this.”
“But there is another Bible verse just like it in I Corinthians 10:23, too,” said Gravel.
“I need to see that, too,” said Flanders. She searched the Scriptures and found it and showed it to him to read. He read it out loud thereby: “All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but all things edify not.”
“What do you say about this verse?” asked Fair Lassie Lisa.
“This verse makes me skeptical about my cross dressing,” he did say. “Maybe I would be better off not wearing things like this all the time.”
“My twin brother was a cross dresser. He still might be a cross dresser. He’s a mighty young Christian guy who loves to read his Bible and pray his prayers and go to church. He even wins souls with his church brethren. And he is the usher of his Baptist church that he goes to. And he longs for Heaven and the rapture of the believers soon to come,” said Fair Lassie Lisa.
“He sounds like he is a man mighty in the faith,” said Flanders.
“He lives to worship the Lord,” said Gravel, “even more so than I do.”
“And even now he wrestles with drag, himself so full of the Holy Spirit?” asked Flanders.
“He told me once, ‘Twin Sister, once a guy tastes drag, he never forgets it again.’” declared Fair Lassie Lisa.
“Did he say other things that I need to find out about this drag queen desire?” asked Flanders.
“Yeah. He also said that it is not an addiction where quitting it is hard at first and easier over time. Nay! He told me that it is an addiction where quitting it is real easy at first and harder over time,” said Gravel.
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“Do you know what that might mean?” asked Flanders.
“Yeah,” she said, “It means that the longer you are away from it, the more you get to want it back.”
“What else did he say in his experience about us drag queens?” asked Flanders.
“He said that if a cross dresser repents and quits wearing women’s clothes, that then he gets fun cross dressing dreams in the night for as long as he is off of his habit,” said Gravel.
“Does he have dreams like I do about such drag?” asked Flanders.
“Uh huh. He had a whopper of a dream about drag the other night,” said Fair Lassie Lisa. “But this drag dream had a bad ending for him instead of a happy ending for him.”
“Would he mind if you told me about it?” asked Flanders.
“It is something that he would be glad for me to warn others like him about,” said Fair Lassie Lisa. “He wants to edify and build up other believers in the faith from what he has learned in his walk with so-patient God. He would want you to hear about his dream.”
She then reached into her purse and took out a folded piece of white paper and unfolded it flat. It was a page of keyboarding. “This must be a write-up of your twin brother’s dream,” said Flanders.
“Twin Brother typed it up as precisely as he could remember it, and he remembered all of it,” said Gravel.
“May I read this in silence to myself?” asked Flanders.
“God would like that,” said Fair Lassie Lisa. And she handed him the tale of the dream written by the dreamer.
And this was what Flanders Nickels went on to read in silence: “I am in west De Pere at night, having walked from my place in east De Pere. I am by what was once my Baptist church. It is dark, getting cold, and first snow is falling. And I am concerned how to get back home, my penny loafers full of tears and all. The old church is now sold, abandoned, and no longer used, now forever vacant. I
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go in to use the bathroom before I will walk back home across the bridge. I go in; the lights are on; and a man whose face I see and who sees me is there. At first we are both surprised and frightened. Then I find out that he is a missionary whom my pastor knows. And this missionary comes to remember me. And we are okay. Behold, now I am as I am, now in a dress and pumps. I feel good. And more from his church come into this building. Soon his whole flock is here. And they all see me in my traditional drag. I feel happy. Then this visiting pastor gets alone with me at a table and starts to share the Word of God with me. I think that I hear him talking about ‘abomination,’ (of course, the word for cross dressing in the Bible). And I listen. He shares lots of Bible verses with me in preaching, but I cannot hear the Bible verses that he is speaking. It is like I cannot any longer hear Bible verses anymore. And I want to ask him to help me make the right decision about drag. I begin to think that now I wish to repent of all that now finally. And I begin to present my case, or speech, or presentation, with subtle and mysterious roundabout parley, hoping to soon break it all open with a culminating confession and revelation to the man of God. And, all along, I am trying to remember just the right and favorite Bible verse to him about drag queens that I had always known all along. But I cannot remember it, nor any of the other verses about drag now anymore. It is like I am forgetting verses in the Holy Bible. Nor can I remember even any of the references of those good old verses I had once studied and once lived. I then thought to find them in the concordance of this missionary’s Bible. But I cannot find his Bible’s concordance in the back for all of the appendices back there. I cannot even find the Bible itself in his Book before these appendices. Now I decide to go to the bathroom. Out in the open here, between the flock and the urinals are huge piles of glops of food on the hard tile floor, left there by all of the ill-behaved children of this congregation, like unto little lakes of yellow mustard. After, one of the children stares at me in my dress and pumps for a while. And I still did not get to finish my business that I have with the pastor. I am getting restless. Then this minister calls his flock for a short word. I have to wait upon this pastor for his help for a little longer now. Then the flock begins to file out of
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the building slowly. I do not know at first what is happening. My pumps are on the floor by the door. It is time to put them on. Then I realize what is happening. Everybody is leaving for the night. Only a few people are left now in the building, and, the pastor, who had promised to drive me home, is already outside. I have to quickly put on my high heels and get outside and run to the missionary if I want to get my ride. But my women’s shoes will not snap on to my feet; I have to struggle to get them on. And they still are not on. And the missionary may be leaving me behind. My last chance to repent of cross dressing is passing me by. The man of God is going. And I am going to be left out in the cold. In my women’s dress and in my women’s pumps I am going to have to walk back home in the winter and in the dark and in the cold and in the snow. And I will never get another chance from God again. It will be forever too late for me.”
Flanders Nickels paused long and hard to ruminate upon this that he had just read to himself.
Then he asked, “What did your twin brother do after he had dreamed this?”
“He went and repented again of his drag life,” said Fair Lassie Lisa.
“God really spoke to him with that dream,” said Flanders.
“My own pastor told us in a sermon that God does not speak to Christians in dreams these days,” said Gravel. “Pastor knows even more about the Bible than I and Twin Brother know about the Bible.”
“Is that really so?” asked the new convert in Christ. “It was not God who gave your brother that dream?”
“Pastor preaches on I Corinthians chapter thirteen lots, and in that chapter, it says that God spoke to people through dreams and visions as late as in the days of the early church. But when the canon of Scripture was completely done, then God stopped using dreams to speak to His believers.”
“How does God speak to His children nowadays if he did not give your twin brother that warning dream then, Gravel?” asked Flanders Nickels.
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“Through His written Word,” she said, holding up her unique Bible.
“He speaks through the Holy Bible these days,” said Flanders in edification.
“The King James Version Holy Bible,” she said specifically.
A long while of silence and reflection came upon Flanders after he had learned this about the Bible.
“What are you thinking about, Flanders?” asked Fair Lassie Lisa.
Flanders asked, “But is there a Bible verse that God needs to speak to me from this King James Bible right now that can get a hold of my heart about my own drag queen life, a Word of God that really can hit home with me more than those two verses did that you showed me from I Corinthians?”
“There is one that my twin brother told me when he first discovered it for himself,” said Fair Lassie Lisa. “I was afraid to tell that one to you so soon after you got saved,”
“Your twin brother in this dream narrative he wrote told about the Bible calling cross dressing an ‘abomination,’” said Flanders.
“Twin Brother is right, Flanders,” said Fair Lassie Lisa. “Do you think that you are ready for it now?”
“I am ready for the truth of God,” said Flanders.
And she searched the Scriptures, found the most apt verse of which she was hinting, and said to Flanders, “It is here, in Deuteronomy 22:5.” And she gave his proffered hands her Bible, open to the right page.
And Flanders read in thoughts this most convicting Bible verse to himself: “The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman’s garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the Lord thy God.”
Flanders said nothing, did nothing, betrayed nothing, for a most uncomfortable long while for Fair Lassie Lisa. Then he got up from the table, went into his bedroom in his cheerleader uniform,
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and came back to the living room in blue jeans and cotton shirt. And he sat down again at the table with Gravel and spoke a most solemn promise, “I choose this day not to be abominable unto the Lord my God.”
It was midnight now in this most memorial Halloween for Flanders Nickels. He had found Christ as Saviour. He had found a girlfriend-in-the-Lord. And he had found victory over cross dressing in the power of the Holy Spirit. Fair Lassie Lisa was still here with him. And, being midnight of Halloween, this was now technically the day after Halloween. The two on this first date between them were now out upon the balcony in the dark of night and in unseasonable warmth despite it being November now. Flanders asked, “Gravel, remember when you asked me what I would do about my cheerleader uniform when Halloween was done and over with?”
“I do, Flanders,” said Gravel.
“Well this is now after Halloween,” he said. “Halloween is now done and over with.”
“I see that you are still in men’s clothes,” she said.
“Yeah. And it is not all bad,” he said.
“What did you do with your cheerleader uniform?” she asked.
“It is in a cardboard box right now. I’m getting rid of it right now,” he said.
“What are you going to do with it right now?” asked Fair Lassie Lisa.
“Do you see my back yard down there, Gravel?” he asked.
“Yes, even in the dark of night,” she said. “Thank God for the full moon.”
“Do you see that little pit with the steel band around it and the little stones in it and the sticks and little boards?” he asked.
“It looks like a fire pit,” she said.
“It is a fire pit,” he said.
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“I think that I know what you’ll do,” she said.
“I am going to dump my old cheerleader’s uniform out of the box and into the fire that I will build in that fire pit, and my problems are all gone,” he said.
“Let’s go build a fire down there,” said Fair Lassie Lisa.
“’Wickee wickee,’ as Mom used to say when it was time for me to hurry,” said Flanders.
Both ran down the back porch wooden staircase out here unto the back yard. Flanders had with him a box of matches and pieces of newspaper and a little log. They both quickly arrived at the fire pit in the light of the full moon at the same time. But where was the box?
“Flanders, we forgot the main thing,” said Gravel.
“My former drag is still up there on the balcony,” said Flanders with a laugh.
“I’ll go get it,” said Fair Lassie Lisa.
“And I’ll wait here,” he said. Gravel began to go and retrieve the cheerleader uniform, and Flanders began to make the fire in the pit.
Gravel picked up the box, held it curiously in her hands, and hugged it against herself in her arms in a kind of affection and sad parting. She hesitated. She thought to have to go back down to the fire pit in haste. But the girl stayed up here. And she opened the box and gazed upon the maroons and the whites and the grays within in the light of the moon.
“Fair Lassie Lisa, we ought not to keep the most Holy God waiting,” called forth Flanders in gentle exhortation.
“Let’s not burn this cheerleader uniform, Flanders,” said Gravel in great surprise to Flanders.
“Woman, your new Christian boyfriend has repented. It cannot be of God that you would seek to tempt me back into old sin and disannul my repentance like this,” said Flanders. There was ire in his tone toward her, and she did not blame him for his rebuke at her like this.
Nonetheless, to explain her words just now, she said, “I want this cheerleader uniform all and
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only for myself.”
“You want my former drag attire?” he asked. This time she could hear sweet accord in his voice.
“I would like to put it on just as I like to put on this prom gown,” she said,
“It would be yours all to yourself?” he asked. She nodded. “And it would never become mine ever again?” he asked. She nodded. And he said, “This cheerleader uniform which is unrighteous drag for me is most quite righteous clothes for you, Fair Lassie Lisa.” She nodded again. And now he nodded.
“It would be okay with God were we to agree to all of this, Flanders,” she said.
“It sounds like a trick from Satan the tempter still to me, Gravel,” he said.
“God was speaking to my heart up here with this cheerleader’s uniform when you were building the fire down there,” said Gravel. “Would you like to hear what God was telling me about my keeping this away from the fire?”
“Yes, Do tell me, girlfriend,” said Flanders, finding faith in Gravel.
“God told me that the drag that you have in your heart will never completely leave your heart. In order to appease your fetish for women’s clothes, you need a pretty girlfriend to wear women’s clothes for you. That way, when you see me in my new cheerleader uniform from you, you will be satisfied for your fetish without having put on your old cheerleader uniform. It sounds like to me, from just this night of our first date, that the first thing that you notice in a girl is indeed what she is wearing.
For you, what a woman wears is even more important to you that if she has a pretty face or a pretty build or a pretty personality. That is what God was telling me up on your balcony here when you were getting ready to burn it all up,” said Gravel in great personal edification to Flanders.
“I believe you,” said Flanders. “Let us not burn the Halloween costume. I hereby give you my trick-or-treat costume, Gravel.”
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“Why, thank you, Flanders,” said Fair Lassie Lisa. Then she said, “Mind if I put this on right now?”
“No better flattery has any converted drag queen like myself ever heard from his girlfriend about his cheerleader uniform that that which you have just said to me, O dear Gravel,” said Flanders Arckery Nickels.
And Fair Lassie Lisa went into his apartment, took off her fetching prom dress, and put on her irresistible cheerleader’s uniform. And she came back outside and presented herself up here in the light of the full moon before Flanders.
“Oo là là, a fairy tale princess, O Gravel,” said Flanders.
“Your fairy tale princess indeed, boyfriend,” said Fair Lassie Lisa.
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