Wendy McLennan looked at herself in the mirror and was happy with what she saw.
Looking back at her was an attractive young woman wearing a black microfiber longsleeved minidress, sheer black pantyhose and four-inch black high heels. She had a pointed witch's hat on her head and was holding a straw broom. Her makeup was dramatic: blood-red lipstick, heavy black mascara, smoky black eyeliner, multi-hued eyeshadow and rouged cheeks. Her shoulder length hair was raven-black with indigo highlights worn straight with bangs. Her décolletage was exposed by the dress's plunging neckline.
Wendy McLennan was dressed as a Halloween witch and Mary Whitford, her best friend at the Omicron Lambda Lamia coeducational fraternity, had helped her with her costume and makeup. Wendy pretended to need all the help she could get because under the makeup, dress and heels was twenty year old William McLennan. Wendy's hair, her svelte figure, her long shapely legs and her pretty face were all her. The only part of her body that was artificial was her breasts which were expensive silicon breastforms.
"You look gorgeous! Wendy the witch! O... M... G! I'd never guess that that was you William, you look more like a woman than I do," Mary squealed.
William had not let on that he had been crossdressing ever since he had reached puberty. He had started, like most, borrowing his sister's clothing and had progressed to owning his own extensive wardrobe. Also like most, he was very much in the closet and few knew of his secret, certainly no one in the fraternity.
"I do look pretty convincing don't I?" Wendy complimented herself.
"You sound it too," Mary giggled.
"I've been practicing my female voice ever since I decided to dress as a witch," Wendy lied.
William had perfected a female voice long ago and practiced it until it came naturally to him.
The fraternities and sororities at Saceur College trick or treated every Halloween, it was a long held tradition. Each frat-house and sorority gave an award for the best costume and Wendy was sure that she would not be the only guy getting around in drag tonight but she wondered how many of them were also secret transvestites?
Gangs of college students dressed in their Halloween finery roamed the streets of Haxa, the small Virginian town where Saceur College was located, and trick or treated late into the night after most of the children had gone to bed. Most of Haxa's residents enjoyed the antics and pranks played by the students and those who didn't tolerated them because the college was one of the primary sources of revenue for the townsfolk. They treated the costumed students of Saceur College not with candy, but with booze and snacks and in the case of some of the more liberal thinking residents, drugs.
"You look stunning too Mary," Wendy complimented her friend.
Mary was dressed as Harley Quinn and she had gone full Margo Robbie right down to the red and blue accented blonde hair, midriff exposing ripped t-shirt, tiny hotpants, runnered black fishnet pantyhose and quirky high-heeled boots. She had the makeup down pat too. Mary had even gone to the trouble of finding authentic temporary tattoos, including the
'Lucky You'
below her navel.
The
'Lucky You'
tattoo had always intrigued Wendy but she disagreed with online pundits about its meaning. Wendy thought the tattoo was located above Harley Quinn's crotch to specify that if you had got that far you were getting lucky. Wendy looked at the corresponding tattoo on Mary Whitford's lower belly and thought that she wouldn't mind getting lucky with Mary. She wondered if Mary might be up for some faux lesbian sex later.
Wendy shook the thought out of her mind to be revisited later; she was becoming uncomfortably erect in her red satin panties as a tableaux of sexual fantasies played out in her mind. William/Wendy McLennan was bisexual. William was only interested in women, the thought of having sex with another man interested him not at all. Wendy however swung both ways and she was liked to spend the weekends and holidays in the nearby city of Pishach picking up tranny-chasers in LGBTI bars or holed in her hotel room and posting her availability on Craigslist and Grindr.
Wendy and Mary met the other frat members in the House's common room which had been appropriately decorated for the holiday. Their frat brothers and sisters had gone to the same considerable efforts with their costumes. There were pirates, super heroes, ghouls, goblins and ghosts, and celebrity impressionists and parodies and of course, some of the men were in drag as were some of the women although Wendy still thought that she looked the most convincing.
They drank shots and shotgunned a couple of beers and were well on their way to being inebriated by the time they left to go trick or treating. Wendy and Mary teamed up with the werewolf, Superwoman and Beetlejuice and headed out into Haxa just after 9PM.
The streets of Haxa were bereft of children who had been replaced by marauding gangs of college students. Some of the houses had been darkened but most still had welcoming lights and decorations. Wendy's little group knocked on half a dozen doors where they were greeted with bottles of beer and shots of liquor and in some instances were invited in for cocktails. They soon lost Superwoman who elected to stay in a house inhabited by a couple in their late twenties. The lady of the house was dressed as Elvira and her husband as Superman and they made it obvious that they were putting more emphasis on tricking than treating. Wendy was a little jealous; she wouldn't have minded a ménage à trois with the attractive couple herself.
At another house they were offered Molly which combined with the alcohol to provide a mellowing effect and they were offered mushrooms at another house, which caused Wendy to have mild hallucinations. Later in the evening Wendy found herself alone and on the outskirts of Haxa coming down from an MDMA and psilocybin induced high, feeling disoriented and dehydrated. She had no idea what had happened to Mary, the werewolf or Beetlejuice. She had lost her witch's hat and straw broom somewhere but that was not her main concern.
The area was quite rural and there was only one house on the street and it looked abandoned. Then Wendy saw a light in one of the windows and she sighed with relief and made her way over to the house. She would ask for some water and request the owner call her a cab as she had sensibly left her cell phone in her dorm room. Last year she had awoken the day after Halloween hungover, naked and bereft of her phone, wallet and keys and she had no intention of doing so this year.
The wooden gate was stuck half-open and refused to budge so she eased around it carefully so as not to put a runner in her pantyhose. The gate was attached by rusty hinges to a lopsided and decrepit fence overgrown with weeds and missing most of its pickets. The house didn't look much better. The roof was sagging and missing slats, the exterior wooden cedar walls were misaligned and the battens were bleached and coming adrift. The windows were filthy with grime and the tattered mesh curtains looked like they had rotted in place. Wendy was surprised that anyone lived in the house but as she made her way along the broken brick path she could definitely hear footsteps and discordant music.
She wondered if it was the drugs she had taken or just her overactive imagination but the house didn't seem to be getting any closer and she seemed to have been walking on the crumbling path for an eternity.
Wendy closed her eyes and shook her head to clear her mind and when she opened them she was surprised to find that she was on the stoop and only inches from the door. The jangly music was somewhat louder and the dingy diaphanous drapes whispered as they rustled in the breeze although Wendy couldn't feel one.
The door swung open on rusted hinges without her even knocking and Wendy was half-expecting some sort of ghoul to greet her. A shiver ran down her spine and she considered running away but she doubted that her legs were up to the task. But instead of a ghoul she was greeted by a handsome well-dressed young man.
"Can I help you?" the man's voice was lustrous and exotic with an accent that Wendy couldn't place.
"I'm Wendy McLennan, a student at Saceur College. I've been out trick or treating and I seem to be lost," she explained.
Her mouth felt like it was filled with cotton wool.
"Of course... A few of your colleagues came knocking on my door earlier tonight and I was able to treat them although my resources are somewhat limited," the man opened the door wide and indicated for Wendy to enter.
The interior of the house appeared to be as decrepit as the exterior and Wendy was reluctant to go inside.
The man smiled and his handsome face became almost beatific. Wendy felt like she wanted drown in the deep blue pools of his eyes.
"Sorry about the house. I inherited it from my grandfather and I'm only staying in it for a few days to clear out the family memorabilia and heirlooms before it's sold," the man gestured with his open hand for Wendy to enter.
Wendy felt the house almost pull her inside and when she stepped over the doorsill she felt another chill run down her spine. The door closed behind her and the occupant sidled up beside her. He smelled nicely of aftershave but there was subtle undercurrent of rotting meat coming from somewhere.
"I'm Stephan Trompeur, pleased to meet you Wendy," the man offered his hand to Wendy.
"I'd just like a drink of water and to use your phone to call a ride," Wendy explained, declining to take the well-manicured hand offered to her.
"I'm happy to wait outside on the stoop," she added.
"Nonsense. I'll not hear of it. Come into the drawing room and get warm. I'll get you a drink and bring you the phone," Stephan took Wendy's hand in his.
His flesh felt cool and smooth and she felt a slight tingle of electricity which both scared and excited her. She studied his features in the gloom and observed that Stephan was brutally handsome, slim and muscular, with a symmetrical face, black hair and eyes that were like fire and ice with currents you could drown in. Wendy felt herself being drawn into them.
They seemed to glide effortlessly along the ratty colourless carpet runner down a hall where the decrepit walls were mouldy and decaying wallpaper hung in swathes, some of it draped over fading portraits of long-dead people and antiquated rural scenes.
"I should explain. I'm not really a girl," Wendy felt stupid as soon as she had said it.
"Of course you are; at least for tonight," Stephan squeezed her palm.
The drawing room was the antithesis of the rest of the house. A fire crackled in the huge fireplace warming the room. Had Wendy noticed smoke coming from the chimney? She couldn't remember and it didn't seem important, she was so exhausted that she could hardly stay on her feet.
The room was dark, lit only by the desultory glow of the open fire and the pallid gleam of an antique desk lamp set on an ancient secretaire. The light failed to fill the room and shadows extended into the corners making it difficult to assess the size of the room. Heavy brocaded curtains blocked any light that might have seeped past the tattered sheers. Dust motes floated lazily in the air.
