THE DARE (G!P Freenbecky)

Chapter 1

"You've got to be out of your mind!" Becky Armstrong stared at her best friend, Lookkaew, and wondered if the crazy scheme she'd just heard had really come out of her best friend's mouth, or if she's simply hallucinated the words.

"Please, Bec, please! You're the only person I could ask to do this-"

"Wait a minute," Becky stood up, then paced the confines of her friend's large, feminine bedroom. "It's the night before your wedding to Anda, and you want me to go to her bachelor party, crash it inconspicuously, of course and make sure she's not making whoopee with one of the strippers?"

Lookkaew nodded her head, her hip-length brunette hair swinging gently against her delicate back. "Thats about covers it."

"This is insane! What this really means is that you're actually considering marrying a woman tomorrow afternoon who you don't trust!"

"No," Lookkaew said, sitting back on her bed, propped up with a profusion of ruffled, shell-pink pillows, "What it means is that I know Anda's an intersex."

"Oh, what's that supposed to mean?

"You know that old joke, the one about the brain and the penis sharing one single blood supply."

Becky had to laugh, "Right! And when the blood goes to the little head-"

"The big head can't think straight."

Becky walked to the window and stared outside. Oak trees devoid of their leaves this mid- December evening adorned the suburban streets of Wilmete, Illinois, outside Chicago. Multicolored Christmas lights twinkled on the two- story house across the street. She'd flown in late from San Francisco, just missing the rehearsal dinner earlier this evening, but in plenty of time to be in the actual wedding. Tomorrow was the big day, at precisely one in the afternoon. And she was the maid of honor.

Becky had attended boarding school in Thailand with Lookkaew, and Lookkaew had been as shy and terrified as Becky had been outgoing and adventurous. As roommates, they'd navigated their years away from home and become fast friends in the process. Now, on the evening that should've been one of the happiest moments in Lookkaew's life, she was terrified her wife-to-be would be tempted to cheat on her.

Becky sat down in the window seat and massaged her temples with her fingertips. She was starting to get a headache, and that was a bad sign. She hated conflict.

"Run this whole thing by me again," She said. Lookkaew sat up straighter, "Okay, Anda knows you're going to be in the wedding tomorrow, but she's never met you, so she won't recognize you. We can also fix you up some kind of disguise, a wig or something, you know? I found out where the party is tonight. It's only a few blocks from here, at Freen's house. She's Anda's best woman. You could run over there and come right back as soon as you were sure-"

"That no hanky-panky's going on."

"Right," Lookkaew took a deep breath, "You're a dancer, so if you had to get up on a table or something and pretend you were a-"

"Stripper," Becky finished for her.

"A.......a dancer, you could pull the deception off."

Silence filled the bedroom. Becky couldn't believe she was actually considering doing this, but Lookkaew had pulled out all the stops, including crying, and she couldn't stand to see her best friend cry. It was tantamount to shooting Bambi at point-blank range with an assault weapon.

"And," Lookkaew said, "You wrote me about that dance recital where your whole troupe wore nothing but electric-blue body paint, so it isn't as if-"

"I'm overly modest," Becky finished for her. She got up and approached the canopy-covered bed, then sat down next to her dearest friend in the world, "But you realize what you're asking me to do, don't you?"