The E Girl
A Short Story
By Maryanne Peters

I never really knew what cosplay was. I was totally unfamiliar with the fan conventions – the “cons” as they are called. I was involved in film editing and although it was not really my thing, I had a credit in three of those science fiction fantasy movies that seemed to draw in those types of fans. I was a nobody to these people, although I was good at my job and paid very well for the work I did on them. It was suggested that to these fans it did not matter if I held the sound boom, or even swept the sound stage, I was one of those behind the movie, so I got an introduction to the fan base.

There must have been hundreds of pretty women at that event, so I don’t know what drew me to this woman in particular, but she was a woman as far as I knew. She was dressed like character from the movie, and she looked very like that character – one of those strong and outrageously beautiful hero types. She was taller than the actress, and broader in the shoulders, but somehow that seemed better. I felt compelled to tell her what a good copy the whole costume was.

“I can pull it off because I am a guy,” she said. The voice coming out of this person was definitely male – not a woman putting on a man’s voice. I have to say that my first reaction was shock – disbelief perhaps. That was followed by a sadness – I am not sure why. Even in that moment I felt that it was wrong on so many levels, that this was not a woman.

“But that’s not a wig?” I said, perhaps hoping that her words were a lie.

“It was just that my hair was long – although not this long – these are extensions. I just happened to have this peak thing in the middle of my forehead, just like she has. It just seemed easier to use my own hair and tie in the high ponytail rather than buy a wig. That was what got me started I guess.”

“Don’t cut your hair,” I suggested. “Who knows, looking like you do there may be a stand-in role for the next movie.”

I could see her eyes switch to my name tag. I was on the film production team, but I had nothing to do with filming, so anything I said about roles was bullshit, but she didn’t know that.

“I go by my Twitch handle Plooki,” she said. “You can find me online. That is PLOOKI – top right of the keyboard.”

She smiled. She was still a she to me. I have to say that this one look made something move inside me. I cannot explain it. It was like something inside was being readjusted to make room for something that was to become my driving force from that day on.

I went through that whole convention thing – the unknown movie mogul waving at crowds of fans that I had nothing in common with, but the producers had asked me to be there because I had equity in these three movies. The first one had been a bit of a gamble, so I had elected a share of the box office and a place in any sequels in lieu of my high fee. It had paid off and while my skills had seen me rich before these movies, I was now very rich. And fans were clamoring for another movies in the series, and another.

But all I could think about was Plooki.

Of course, I knew nothing about Twitch, and the top right of the keyboard made no sense until I looked at mine. I live in my computer, I suppose – it is the new way to edit - but I rarely use the keyboard. I typed in “Twitch” and then “Plooki”.

There she was, talking to me, and smiling. I was pleased to see that she looked feminine, although she spoke with a man’s voice that I find very unsettling. She was wearing a sweatshirt and a hairband to keep her shoulder length hair out of her eyes, and her face was smooth and without blemishes.

“I am looking at the chat stream and everybody seems to want me to dress up as another female character,” she said. It was like she was teasing her audience. “Come on, isn’t it about time for me to get a buzz cut and be a male character? Let me know what I should do. You know I will do anything for money.”

On the bottom left of the screen was a dollar amount – I forget how much but it was just a few hundred dollars, and it was clicking up in amounts of one dollar every few minutes. Somehow, she was being paid, and it took me a few minutes to find out how, and sign myself up as “Edit”. I could transfer money from my bank account. I had a quick look at the balance in my checking account – it was fairly healthy.

I decided to introduce myself.

“Hi Plooki, I am Edit and I am a big fan,” I typed. “I want to see the real Plooki rather than a character, but to my mind Plooki is female. Tomorrow, I want you to be a girl for the day. For that I will pay you $5,000.”

I could see those pretty eyes shift to the screen and a look of surprise on her face. She said – “Oh look! I have a new follower. Hi there Edit. Wow, that’s a lot of money, but if I was a girl I would be one with expensive tastes. Let me PM you with my PO Box and my size and you can send me something nice for a girl like I will be would want to wear. You send the money and I will be the female me tomorrow, and again when the outfit arrives.”

The chat stream on the screen started to roll furiously. Every message started to read “Yes” or “Be a girl”. It seemed like there were plenty watching, and they all wanted what I wanted. I sent the money. It flashed up on screen.

“Oh dear! I looks like I have done it now,” said Plooki. “I will have to sign off and prepare myself for tomorrow.”

When she signed off the screen was occupied by a picture of a young man who must have clearly been Plooki in male form. But I refused to believe it, preferring to think of him as her brother. It seemed to me that this was a person who should be female, regardless of what they actually were. The gender neutral Plooki was not really acceptable, but a male Plooki was disgusting.

I barely slept that night. The following morning I went back on Twitch, but the time for her to appear was some way off so I had time to shift my attention to work, awaiting the reappearance of the object of my infatuation.

I did take some time off to consider how I would like to see her dressed. I had the measurements of the man, and first I needed to consider how to reshape that body. Everything is online, and everything can be delivered to a PO Box once paid for by me.

I was back on Twitch at the appointed time. There was the face of her brother. Before she appeared, her voice came on.

“Hi there fans. It is almost Plooki time, and because of my new follower Edit, you are about to meet Plooki Girl!”

Her image came up. She was wearing a pink tank top with a crudely stuffed bra underneath it and a blonde wig, but her face was expertly made up and was simply gorgeous. There was still that annoying male voice that I had first heard at the convention, but it was clear that the face art I had seen there had been carried over into a more modest beautification here.

Again, the chat stream was rolling with words “Wow”, “OMG” and “You are a knockout”, and Plooki was basking in it, playing up to her web cam with poses and batting eyelashes.

“Where are you, Edit? Do you approve?” she asked.

I was trembling as I type simply “yes”. But then I pulled myself together. I typed – “Your outfit is on the way, but I will pay you $1000 for everyday you are Plooki Girl until it does and you put it on. But I would like to see your own hair styled nicely instead of the wig.”

“How rich are you, Edit?” I could see her reading my reply on her screen. “I could certainly afford to go the salon tomorrow morning. I have never been to a salon before. I wouldn’t know what to ask for.”

“Soft curl set would be nice,” I typed. “And I will send you an extra $1,000 if you get a Brazilian all over wax.”

“Oh that sounds painful,” she said looking at the stream scrolling with words like “Yes, wax it off!” “I tell you what Edit – make it another $5,000 to get the makeover tomorrow and then $1,000 a day and you have got a deal.”

I sent the $5000 immediately and watched her eyes light up. I knew that I had her on my hook, but it was like she was swimming towards me and was about to jump on to my boat.

The following day she reappeared with her own brown hair in curls. She looked fabulous. She was wearing what looked like a borrowed blouse, but she looked good in it.

“I can’t show you all my body for obvious reasons,” said Plooki Girl. “But I am wearing a skirt so you can see how smooth my legs are. It was super painful at the time, but now I have decided that I don’t really like body hair. They are offering laser depilation, Edit, if you are watching.” I was. When she was up, I was. I was on her hook as much as she was.

I paid another $5000 that day too, because I had further demands. I wanted her to change the screen saver and get rid of “that image of your brother” and replace it with what she looked like now. And I wanted her to get voice coaching to find her feminine voice. She agreed.

The following day she reappeared. I was pleased to see that the curls were still largely intact. It struck me that she had not tried to wash them out to return to living as a man. She must have got through the morning of that day appearing as a woman. But even better, she was wearing the outfit I sent her. There was a corset and breast enhancer with gel pads, and an expensive bra and panty set, and over that a waisted dress design to show the smooth legs and arms, the cleavage and the hourglass figure.

“I did wonder whether I should just take the $1,000 a day and tell you it must still be in the male, Edit,” she said. “But to be honest, when I saw this, I just had to put it on. I googled the labels. I know how much you paid. You are very generous, Edit. I don’t know what to say.”

It seemed that there was a tear in her eye. I transferred another $5,000 straight away. I just sent the message – “You are perfect”.

But she wasn’t. She was still just pretending to be female. It was just that the trace of tear had proved something to me – perhaps proved me right – this was a woman. She just needed to be freed.

I paid the $1,000 every day after that, although I may have missed a few when the demands of work keep me off Twitch. It was important to me that Plooki should understand that she had no reason to present as a man again. If she had once held down a job that was now over – she was a full time “E-girl” as they are known – a young woman who makes a living appearing on internet streams.

Her fan base became aware that she was no longer appearing in public as a male because she confirmed it with videos of her lunching or going out to a bar with others – usually other E-girls she had met online. The best thing was to see that she was able to fit in so well with others of the sex that it seemed to me, she was destined to be.

I sent her female hormones and male hormone blockers. I found a source and had them delivered to her PO Box. It was not something that she shared with the public but regularly she would pop one online calling them “vitamins” but she knew that I knew she was taking them as I asked.

There was trust from the moment that she said that she could have lied and taken the money, but seemed to me that she was lying to her other fans. Who was watching when she started all this was unclear, but it now appeared her chat stream was mainly male. She referred to them collectively as “boys” and while I sent her expensive and classy clothes, others had taken to sending her outfits that are best described as “slutty” together with dildos, collars, chastity devices and other sex toys, along with smaller amounts of money begging for her to do something indecent. Of course such things were impossible to show anyway, but she made a point of showing off the gifts and tossing them in a bin labelled “sex junk”.

She would sometimes revert to her male voice insisting that she was not gay or submissive in any way. I found this jarring, because of the return to the male voice that she seemed to be slowly losing. And it sounded like a lie, or perhaps I hoped it was. It seemed to me that she should be attracted to men, and even to me, although she didn’t know me.

I told her once that we had met, and that intrigued her. But I refused to give away anything else. There was a part of me that new that this whole thing was just a prolonged and increasingly expensive, fantasy on my part.

Still, I lived for the moment when she would open a parcel that I had sent her, perhaps expensive lingerie or jewellery for her to marvel at before blowing me a kiss and thanking me as sweetly as you could ever imagine. These moments were worth more than my fortune, it seemed to me.

Increasingly she had guests visit her in what was now a purposely fashioned E-Girl studio. A couple of times the guest might be transgender – a pretty trans-girl but never anything as beautiful as Plooki Girl. They would talk about hormones and surgery but Plooki would always say “that’s not for me. I am not trans. But clearly, I am living as a woman these days, so I feel I have a real understanding of what they are going through.”

I suppose that I wondered if I should offer to pay for her sex change surgery. If I did then it would have been only fair to ask her to show me her new body in the flesh, but somehow that was not how this was supposed to work. It seemed to me that I had created a beautiful thing as she was. The very idea of surgery and cutting into this creature, shedding her blood, was wrong.

I had created my own frustration, as well as a stream of cash out, but it was nothing against what I had. She is welcome to it.

The fourth movie in the series came out and I was promised that there would be a fifth. It was still not really my thing, and I enjoyed other work more, but when I was told that there would be some “conferences” I said to count me in for the local ones – it seemed to me that I had a chance to see Plooki again – face to face.

I walked on to the stage last, the unrecognizable man behind the stars. I surveyed the audience. I was looking for her. I was so intent that I missed my cue – a question for the man on the end. I fumbled it and felt embarrassed, but it was not why I was there.

But now I was known and I found it harder to move about among the fans after the presentation, in my search for Plooki.

Then suddenly I saw her. She looked stunning. Her hair was now so long and tumbled around her shoulders in carefully styled waves. She was wearing a costume from the universe the film was set but nothing relevant to any leading character. And she was hanging on to the arm of a man. He was taller than her even in her heels, so well over 6 feet, and he was young, athletic and handsome. My first thought was of him having sex with my Plooki. Could she have had an operation with telling her fans? There had been extended periods of absence, so it might have been possible.

I felt compelled to approach. I mean really compelled – not able to stop myself. I wanted to get close enough to smell her body, or even to touch her, to ensure she was real.

“I know you,” she said. I pretended to suddenly notice her and to ignore the man with her. “I just saw you on stage but some years back you were going to offer me a part on this movie.”

I feigned surprise and a search of my memory before saying – “Yes, I remember … you had a presence on line as I recall … Polki?”

“Plooki. She’s just a character,” she said. “My name is Rachael and this is my husband Tom. And don’t think anything about me not getting the part. I would not have had time to do it, and frankly, we don’t need the money.”

I must have gone blank. There was nothing to say. She smiled and walked away with him, and with her went whatever dreams I had. I am not even sure what those dreams were, but it doesn’t matter. I had those years when an hour or two with her every day or so, meant absolutely everything.

How many people truly know such joy?

The End

© Maryanne Peters 2023

Author’s Note: I have to say that the idea for this story came from F1nn5ster on Twitch and in particular her relationship with a major financial supporter in Tenmuses but the story here and its characters are entirely fictional. Link to a YouTube clip - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2R3jhD7HpvM

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