Duty, Honor, Country       by: Brandy Dewinter

 

Chapter 2 - Training?

The helo whopped its way to a destination so distant from the base where Beech had been stationed that he wondered why they didn’t transfer to a different type of aircraft. After the second fuel stop, hours later, he decided the general hadn’t been joking when he said this mission would involve extreme personal discomfort. And they were just getting started. It didn’t help that the windows on the chopper had been blacked out. There was even a screen across the back of the cockpit so that only the pilots could see forward. The noise level was too high for light conversation, even with the breathtaking Miss McLean, so they were forced to just sit there and "endeavor to persevere". Long after dark the helicopter landed at a small clearing in a wooded area, clearly much higher in elevation than their previous base. It was cooler, for one, but it also had a crisp cleanness that only seemed to be available in the mountains.

Few people realize that the US Army spends more money on training than on procurement, more than on housing, more than on fuel, more even than on food. They are expert at teaching soldiers whatever they need to know to accomplish their military skills. This training base could easily be concealed among the multitude of similar bases, even from inquisitive bureaucrats. The new recruits were shown to their quarters and told to get a good night’s sleep. That revealed the first of what would be many surprises about the base, though. Beech found himself assigned to private quarters and unlike the standard enlisted barracks, these quarters had a private bathroom that was much too elegant to call a latrine. The bed was a frilly canopied confection of lace and spun-sugar delicacy, the closet was big enough to walk around in, and topping it all off, there was a fully-stocked vanity complete with lighted makeup mirror. Though the army had taught him never to pass up a chance to take a quick shower when facilities were available, he knew it was likely to wake him up enough to make it hard to sleep. Using the excuse of the order to get to bed, he quickly stripped out of his still-sweaty Class A uniform and slithered between the cool, slick sheets. In a moment, he was asleep.

At a surprisingly late hour, meaning the sun was already up, Beech, Fox, and Carp Anderson were roused from their delicate beds by Constance McLean herself. As she gently called to him, Beech realized it was the first time he had heard her speak. Her sentences were fine, idiomatic American English, but there was a lilt to her voice that spoke of the Emerald Isle, a most attractive lilt. Beech responded as any red-blooded American soldier would do, with a gallant reflex he found hard to hide . . er . . no pun intended. He kept the covers around his waist and nodded. After she left, Beech walked into the oh-so-feminine powder room adjoining his bedroom where he found shampoo and conditioner, razor and depilatory, all softly scented with a flowery perfume. His morning shower took only a few minutes. When he stepped out, he looked around for his underwear, expecting to have to wear the same pair again until his personal effects caught up with his abrupt departure. Instead, he found a pair of woman’s panties, colored a brilliant emerald green to match his eyes. They were so thin and smooth they seemed to flow through his fingers like a liquid, catching at the rough calluses on his army-toughened hands. With no alternative he put them on and reached for a white robe he also found. The robe was conventional enough, at least to look at, but when he wrapped it around himself he realized it was much softer and thicker than any he had ever worn. A sharp rap at his door started him moving from conditioned reflex and he went into the hallway to find Constance waiting with Fox and Anderson.

They were escorted to a large sitting room, decorated with a scattering of couches and easy chairs. There were already another half a dozen men waiting, all dressed in the thick white robes. Moments after they arrived, another door opened and the general entered. At least, from the neck down it looked like the general. The camo BDUs were the same, but only the fact that they had seen him without his sunglasses, and with his hair let down, identified him to the open-mouthed recruits. This morning, the general had completed . his? . . makeup, adding blush and crimson lipstick. His? . . hair was brushed into spun gold, caressing her . . um. . . his . . cheeks with gentle whispers. She wore sparkling golden loops in her ears, and a wide choker necklace. In a word, she was beautiful. Beech realized he was having an increasingly difficult time remembering that this vision of loveliness was indeed a man. The classic beauty displayed over the androgynous BDUs shouted femininity so loudly it was drowning out the memory of the male officer they had first met.

"Good morning, ladies," the traditional army insult came from the same soft voice they had heard, but it now sounded sultry and added to the compelling image. "Be seated."

"Today is the first day of your training for the mission. You will be trained in three main areas; feminization, unarmed combat, and theft. Of these, the most time-consuming will be the feminization training, but as you can see from me, the results will be amazing."

At this point, one of the recruits raised a tentative hand. The general responded, "Yes?"

"Excuse me, . . um . . sir . . but why train us to be women? I mean, why not just use women?"

The general paused for a long moment, a delicate pout forming on those glorious crimson lips. Then she nodded to herself and said, "All right, I guess a little more background is in order. All of you know the penalties if you breathe a word of this to anyone, ever."

"In a small but strategic country that I won’t name right now, there is a totalitarian leader who is literally insane. He has developed a biological weapon of such virulence that it threatens all life on earth. We believe he intends to release it at his death in the ultimate power statement, ‘Apres moi, le deluge.’ Our mission is to extract that biological agent and replace it with a harmless substitute. We must do this so secretly that he never realizes it was done, or he will produce a replacement. This dictator, call him El Supremo for now, has kidnapped a harem of beautiful women and placed them in an outer ring of defense around the only access to the laboratory where this germ is kept. Unless escorted by El Supremo himself, all men in the outer ring are shot on sight. The women have all been trained to do this. Every now and then El Supremo releases what he calls a criminal into the area, and any woman that doesn’t immediately try to kill him is punished so severely that few survive. For anyone to approach the inner sanctum, they must appear to be beautiful women."

"On the other hand, to gain access to the inner sanctum and to move around within it, one must be a potent, virile, biological male. Among his other perversions, El Supremo likes to test his laboratory workers for their masculinity. Fresh, live sperm is required to pass several checkpoints. He believes that this two-layer defense, one lethal to men, one impassable to women, provides an adequate barrier to penetration. Our mission is to breach that barrier without letting him know it was done. It will require us to pass as beautiful women, hence the specialized training. Is that clear?"

At the questioners nod, the general resumed his briefing. "All right. As of right now, you will begin your feminization training. From this moment on, each of you is to pick a feminine name that is close enough to your real name that you will respond automatically if you hear it. We will all address each other only by these feminine names. We will refer to each other only with feminine pronouns, and even think of each other in that way. Unconscious mental attitudes have as much or more to do with feminization than outward appearance. I have told you that I am General Merlin, but my femme name is Marilyn. Pick your names, introduce yourselves to each other, then report back to your room in fifteen minutes. Your first instructor will be waiting."

Instead of leaving the room, he . . she smiled and walked over to where the . . girls . . were sitting and asked them their names. Beech felt he could stay with "Sandy" for his femme name, so that was easy. The recruit nearest him was that "different" one, Tim or Jim Fox. Though it made him uncomfortable, he decided he needed to follow orders and so he introduced himself.

"Hello, my name is Sandy," he said, trying to soften his voice in imitation of the general.

"My name is Jim, . . uh . . that is . . Jamie, or maybe J-a-y-m-i," stammered the other recruit. His hair was a nondescript brown, his eyes, though, were large and a deep, rich chocolate. Beech founf himself unconsciously evaluating "Jaymi’s" feminization potential and felt that "she" could make a quite attractive woman. He wondered what the others thought of his own, that is, "her" own potential. Beech hoped that they could all be as successful as the general. With their short, military haircuts and no makeup, it was hard to think of any of them except as men. As the general circulated among the group of recruits, the ones that had been introduced left for their rooms. Well within the fifteen minute window, all were dispersed.

When Beech returned to his room, he found a casually dressed woman waiting for him. At this point, he wasn’t sure what to expect, perhaps this "woman" was really a feminized man. She was dressed in a short denim skirt and a sleeveless knit blouse. Her hair was medium in length, and her makeup more subdued than the incredible magic recently displayed by "Marilyn". Actually, she was rather plain, for a young, fit woman. The only unusual things about her outfit were the high heels she wore, a bit too formal for her casual appearance.

Her voice was low and gave no additional clues to her true sex when she spoke in a tone that wasn’t quite an order, but also wasn’t quite a suggestion, "You’ll need to get back into the shower. We will be removing all your body hair."

Beech stopped abruptly, not having absorbed what would turn out to be even the first, easiest steps of what his transformation would entail. However, he didn’t protest. Instead, he followed the woman? into the bathroom.

"My name is Karen. I’ll be helping you with your body training, at least the feminization part. You’ll have other instructors for martial arts training. The first step is to get rid of your body hair. Step into the shower, spread your legs, and raise your arms to shoulder height."

These were definitely orders. "Karen’s" rank was unclear, but since just about everyone outranks a Private, Beech did what he was told. He jumped though, when Karen started to spread a foamy cream all over his body. He had seen the can before, recognizing it as one of those depilatory chemicals, but he hadn’t realized it would be used, so soon, and so thoroughly. By the time Karen was finished, every square inch of his body below the eyebrows had been lathered. Every. Square. Inch. Beech’s body had responded to her impersonal ministrations as any young healthy man could be expected to respond. As a result, it wasn’t difficult for Karen to spread the cream over his most intimate hairs. When she had finished, she grinned at him, the first sign of other than professional emotion.

"Don’t worry, if you hadn’t reacted, you’d probably have washed out. Now, stand still for a few minutes before you wash up."

She grinned again at her phrasing, then left the shower stall. Beech stood there for an interminable time, feeling the cream first tingle, then itch, then begin to etch itself into his skin like raw acid. He just kept reminding himself that the general had warned of "personal discomfort". After some timeless interval Karen returned and told him to rinse off, making sure to get every spot of cream. This he did gladly, even though the water must have come straight off the snowpack on the mountains around. When he finally stepped from the shower, Karen handed him another sweetly-scented lotion and told him to rub down all the spots he could reach. Beech recognized the inherent alternative, that she would rub the lotion into him, and part of him wondered if that would be preferable, a consideration that once again demonstrated itself in a visible response. Karen read his "expression" as easily as if it had been broadcast on CNN, and laughed out loud.

"Listen, Sandy, you’ll get plenty of attention, including sexual attention. For right now, we need to get you dressed, at least in the clothes that are my responsibility. By the way, that’s the last time you’ll have to do that. That depilatory cream is special. Your body hair won’t grow again until a neutralizer is applied. See how well the Army takes care of you?"

She led the shocked recruit back out of the bathroom where several packages were placed on a table in the corner of the spacious bedroom. Hanging from the ceiling was a trapeze arrangement, too small to sit on or anything. Maybe it was for pull-ups. The army loved pull-ups almost as much as it loved pushups.

"Grab the bar," Karen directed.

Beech didn’t quite have to jump to reach it, but it pulled him up onto this toes. He started to pull himself up, but Karen stopped him.

"No, just hang there for a minute while I get some measurements."

She made measurements at about 10 places from his armpits to his knees, some around, some up and down, some seemingly random. After she had the measurements, she consulted a table, then reached for one of the packages.

"This will do for your first one, until we get the custom made one ready."

"First what?" Beech asked, then dropped from the bar and shied away as he saw what she was drawing from the package.

"No way!" he complained.

"It’s either this or a stockade for about the rest of your natural life," Karen warned. "Now grab ahold of that bar again."

Beech complied, watching the item out of the corner of his eye like it was a snake that might bite him. The item was a corset, bright red with black striping. Karen had loosened the laces several inches, then opened a series of hooks down the front. She wrapped it around him and fastened the hooks. As Beech hung from the bar, only his toes touching the floor, he began to relax a little, this wasn’t so bad. It was snug, but not too tight. Then Karen started tightening the laces in back. And tightening them. And tightening them. Before long, Beech was gasping for breath, and she still tugged at the now-straining laces.

Finally she relented, "All right, you can lower your arms, now."

Beech let go of the bar, thinking that this would make his breathing easier. In reality, it just made the corset seem tighter. The corset also made his posture remain even more erect than his sergeant had ever managed to drill into him. He gasped, tried to twist and bend, and generally examined the limitations imposed by his new prison. Maybe that stockade wouldn’t be so bad after all.

"Run the straps under your panties," was Karen’s next order.

Panties. What a word to use on a soldier. That’s what they were of course, but what a word. The corset had four dangling straps and he worked them under the thin material of his panties as Karen reached for another box. From this one she drew forth gossamer thin stockings, dark, with seams running from the lacy tops clear to the toes. Karen handed them to Beech as though he knew what to do with them. Of course he knew in general, but not specifically. After a moment’s fumbling, Karen helped him to gather one into a small ring, then carefully draw it up his shining, smooth leg. He managed the other on his own. She showed him how to position the garters and soon he felt the tug and pressure of the stockings as they joined with the counterbalancing pressure of his corset.

"All right," Karen said briskly, "one more item, then a little practice on posture and moving."

The last item was really a pair, a pair of shining black high-heeled shoes. Beech wasn’t expert enough to determine how tall the heels were, he just knew they looked awfully tall to him. They were basically pumps, but there was an ankle strap at the heel. He bent to put them on, but the corset drew him up abruptly.

"You won’t be able to reach them until you learn how to move in that corset a little better," Karen declared the obvious. "I’ll put them on you."

Apparently they had already determined his shoe size, so the shoes fit fine. Well, actually, they fit terribly. There was no room for his toes, and he felt as though his foot had been curved inside out. However, he recognized that the length was appropriate for his foot, with the back of the shoes just slipping snugly over his heels. In a moment Karen had the ankle straps fastened and stood back.

"That’s it, for now, move around a little."

Beech tried to comply, almost falling when he stepped out too far. Karen quickly gave him some pointers and in a surprisingly short time he was able to move about the room with some reliability, if not much grace. A bit more practice and even grace began to appear as he tried to comply with Karen’s guidance to swing his hips more, to point his toes, and to put one foot directly in front of the other. Before he really got smooth, though, he complained.

"My feet are killing me."

"Those are only three-inch heels. Even mine are over 4 inches, and my foot is shorter than yours. By the time we’re done, you’ll be dancing in heels twice that high. But you can take a break for a minute. Here, put this on."

She handed him another robe, this one shorter than the white bathrobe he had worn previously. The robe was a brilliant emerald green to match his eyes (and his panties). It was thin and silky and threatened to go sheer at any second, though it was actually opaque. It also threatened to reveal those matching panties with every movement. It really was short.

"Time for breakfast. An army marches on its stomach," this time Karen couldn’t help but giggle. She moved to the doorway and motioned Beech to follow her.

 

(continued in part 3)

 

 

*********************************************
© 1998 by Brandy Dewinter. All Rights Reserved. These documents (including, without limitation, all articles, text, images, logos, compilation design) may printed for personal use only. No portion of these documents may be stored electronically, distributed electronically, or otherwise made available without express written consent of the copyright holder.