A Mental Sex Change

“Thank you so much Mr. Barren ...er... I mean Ryan. I’ll talk to you on Monday,” I said hanging up my phone. Once I was sure it was off I screamed. Everyone in the room looked at me and I looked over to Mandy and screamed again but this time she joined in.

“Why are we screaming?!?!” Mandy screamed at me.

“We got signed!!!” I scream back and everyone else in the room screamed with us this time.

“Oh my God, you’re shitting me right. We got signed?” Keegan asked and I nodded vigorously screaming again.

“We’re gonna be famous!” Ethan screamed and then I heard the door to the basement being thrown open and I turned to watch my brother come in with a baseball bat in his hand.

“What’s with all the screaming? Is there a burglar?” He yelled looking around the room. When he found nothing he turned to me. “What the Fuck? Did you finally loose your mind?” I stick my tongue out at him.

“Actually no I’m still working on that but for the mean time we got signed,” I say and laugh as his eyes bug out.

“Really? We need to celebrate than. Tonight’s pizzas are on me,” he says and with that everyone heads up the stairs to the cars.

! Monday Morning!
I woke up with the sounds of FMLYHM by Seether blasting from my stereo. I grumbled as I sat up in bed and went to take a shower to get ready for my band’s big day. One of the things that was gonna be difficult about being in this band is that I’m a girl and I’m the lead singer of the band and well for the genre that we’re in girl singers tend to not go very far so I dress and act like a guy because well frankly it’s better for the band. Not that I mind actually some times I wish I’d been born a guy and its kind of a joke in my band when girls are all over me. Now you may be wondering if I’m a lesbian and well I sort of am. I’m actually bisexual playing my part isn’t hard I guess.

I can pull off the whole guy thing rather easily since I’m extremely flat chested. Even though I have long hair too I always braid the longer part and pin it up and let my fringe hang out. To cover my braid I’m always wearing hats and hoodies so it works nicely. As a little touch we always wrap an ace bandage around my chest to cover what little chest I have. At the end I look like your average emo teenage boy.

After getting my hair done and up I put the bandage over my chest and with years of practice it’s become fairly easy. Next I throw on a beanie and a Senses Fail tee. I slip on a baggy pair of skinny jeans after slipping on a pair of patted underwear. (After a fight a while ago I’d convinced the guys to not make me wear patted crotch under wear, frankly it’s rather uncomfortable, so I only had to wear it when I was going face to face with people). I pulled the crotch of the jeans down a little to try and make my ‘dick’ more believable.

Once satisfied with that I slapped two studded belt on my slim hips ( also helps with the boy thing) and pulled my favorite star hoodie on and then my un matching neon socks and my checkered vans. I put a tiny amount of cover up on my face not enough for even my friends to notice and put all my piercings in, my lip, tongue and three in each my ears, along with one no one ever saw, my belly button. I looked in the mirror and if I didn’t know any better I’d think I’d saw a boy.

I grabbed my phone and wallet and shoved them into my pockets and walked down stairs to see my brother making a breakfast burrito in the kitchen. I snuck up behind him and as he went to get a drink from the fridge I grabbed his burrito and took a bite out of it, deliciousness at its finest. When he turned around he walked over and snatched it out of my hand. I gave him the pouty face but he rolled his eyes.

“You know that only works when you’re dressed like a girl,” I sigh and walk over to the fridge to grab the grape juice and drinking it from the bottle. I put it back and turned to look at him leaning against the counter.

“Why you gotta be such a buzz kill Logan?” I walked over to the end table by the door and grabbed my ‘free hugs’ lanyard which held the keys to everything including my custom painted black and purple VW Bug.

“Whatever. Good luck with the whole signing thing,” he said as I walked out of the house and closed the door behind my and made my way to my baby. Like a guy I loved my car and have named her Xenon which means stranger in Ancient Greek. I unlock the car and slid into the driver’s side waiting for Mandy to work her magic and appear at random.

Ok so I’m just gonna warn you now about Mandy. She’s not mentally sane and she takes meds and stuff but even with that she’s a total psycho bitch, but she’s my best total psycho bitch friend and I love all of the random shit she does even if at some points it freaks me the hell out. She doesn’t live with her parents anymore and we’re not really sure where she sleeps but I know that she breaks into people’s houses during the middle of the night and watches them sleep because she’s told me some crazy shit people do.

I’m pulled out of my thoughts when I see the window on the side of my house open and watch Mandy climb out of it with a burrito in her hand and a bag slung over her shoulder. She walks over to my car with her bright pink pigtails blowing in the light breeze. She opened her door and slid into her seat taking a monstrous bite of the burrito. Wait I know that burrito.

“Isn’t that Logan’s burrito?” I ask putting the keys in the ignition and turning on the car.

“Not anymore it’s not,” she said shrugging and I shrugged also turning the stereo on to Good Charlotte. We sang along to the song as we made the short trip to Logan’s house where the rest of the guys had stayed the night at. When I pulled up to the side walk in front of the house I honked the horn and the three boys came running out and piled into the back of my car. Keegan sat behind me and Craig sat behind Mandy leaving Ethan to sit, more like lay, on the other two boys.

“Are we ready to go get famous??!?!?!” Ethan yelled and we all cheered as I pulled the car into drive and we were off the address Mr. Barren had given me on Saturday night after our gig at a local rock café. We were supposed to be meeting him at 11:30 so we still had a fair share of time before we had to be there. When I pulled into a parking spot at the studio building everyone piled out of the car and I locked her. We walked into the building and were met by a lady behind a desk.

“Can I help you?” she asked eyeing us up and I smirked at her mocking tone.

“We’re here for an appointment with Mr. Barren at 11:30,” I said walking over to her desk and leaning on it crossing my leg behind it and put my charm on. I need to keep up the act and this is how I do it usually.

“Ahh so you must be the new band he’s been talking about lately. Very well his office is down that hall at the very end. Don’t open any other door but his do you understand?” She asked pushing my arm off the counter.

“Yeah yeah we get it,” I say as I lead the guys down the hallway. Well here comes the big break I've been working at for years now lets hope it goes smoothly. I walked up to the door and knocked and when I hear someone on the other side say to come in I opened the door and walked in.

“Well if you guys don’t look like a bunch of rock stars,” Mr. Barren said laughing at how nervous we all were. “I swear I’m not gonna bite take a seat,” when we all did he continued, “Now which one of you is the one I spoke on the phone with?”

“That would be me sir,” I said and he looked over to me eyeing me up and down.

“Well why don’t you introduce yourself and then well get to business eh?” he asked.

“Well I’m Nate Anders and I’m the lead vocals of Caught in Cognito,” I say and motion for the rest to follow suit.

“I’m Mandy Magers and I play the drums,” Mandy says from on top of Ethan as she was eating a lollipop that I didn’t know where she got.

“Ethan Henderson and rhythm guitar,” “Craig Titan and bass,” “Keegan Bensen and I play lead guitar sir,” they say in there turns.

“No more of this sir stuff. I’m just a friend ok? Any way so to the reason you’re here, I saw you play at one of the cafes and I liked it so much that I went and bought one of the cds you had out at the merch table. I’ve got to say that you guys have done pretty well for being on your own, and from what I can guess with a little help from this company you guys could really be up there with the big shots in no time,” he said in a matter of fact tone of voice.

“Really? You think we’re that good? That means a lot to us really,” Keegan said with a big grin on his face. Ryan nodded.

“If I didn’t I wouldn’t be asking you to go on the warped tour now would I?” he asked what he said hit me.

“Warped tour! Were fuckin going to warped tour?!?!” I exclaimed and the rest looked stunned. Ryan chuckled and nodded to us.

“There’s some things well need to take care of first before you leave in two weeks like actually signing the contract and a photo shoot and then well talk about getting this cd of yours publish and in the stores. We’ll only need to make a few minor adjustments but for a first try it’s actually quite good. Well on so to the signing I have the contract with me here so if you’d like to sign or if you guys wanna talk about it first,” He offered but we all shook are heads we’d already decided that this was where we wanted the band to go.

“Well then if you’d all sign here,” and then we were signed. Caught in Cognito was officially signed and going to warped tour and we only had weeks to get our minds wrapped around that fact.