For the first time ever there was plans for a very large cosplay convention to come to town. Tons of big shots would be there and to encourage newcomers they were to hold an amateur's contest with a very large prize pool. Sign-ups were filling fast so without a second thought I filled in with just 2 spots remaining. The only issue was that I had no clue who I would be. I knew it had to be appealing and couldn't be some offshoot from something no one had heard of before. I usually flip a coin to decide things like this, but I had more than 2 options in mind. I wrote down several options which also included some gender-bent options as well. It was a new thing people were doing and getting extra credit for pulling it off.

Now for the moment of truth. I put all the options in the bucket and shuffled them around the best I could. It was at this point my mom walked by and started to ask questions.

"What are you doing sweetheart?" She was always trying her hardest to be apart of my life since sobering up. She fell on hard times after we lost my twin sister to drunk driving and she coped with it in a weird way. She drank herself to sleep for months. She tried at some point to dress me in her clothes while drunk and would get mad at me for refusing. The therapist suggested I humor her at least a few times and I will just say that when I did give in... I was glad that there were no cameras and it was just the two of us. It seemed to help however as now she quit drinking. She still slips up from time to time and calls me by my sister's name, but I let it slide even though it's getting more and more frequent.

"Just trying to pick out a costume to enter into the contest for that convention coming up next month. I really want to win first place since it would help us out so much." Her eyes clearly started to tear up being proud of me stepping up to help the family without being asked to. She dropped the clothes basket in her hand and quickly came up to me for a hug. She was a gorgeous woman no doubt, curvy in all the right places including the one now smashed against my face. I could hear her cracked voice as she failed to keep her composure.

"Oh, John I am just so proud of you! Such a respectable person you turned out to be. June would be so proud of you and I'm sure she is watching you now with a smile and a warm heart." She sniffled and released my head to clear up her eyes. "Can I help in any way?"

I hadn't thought about it to be honest. The first thing that came to my mind was to let her pick from the bowl. If only I had told her about the gender-bent thing I'm sure I wouldn't be here writing this story out for you. "Well, sure mom. I suppose. Why don't you pick out who I will go as?" Her smile instantly went from ear to ear and her hand plunged deep into the bowl and mixed around the small pieces of paper. She pulled up a piece and read it out loud.