How I Spent My Summer Vacation

by C. Sprite

 

Chapter Four

 

I stared at the reflection, astonished that such a small amount of greasepaint, and such a large amount of elbow grease, could make such a difference. The reflection staring back at me didn't look even remotely like a boy. It was true that the clothes made a heck of a difference, you wouldn't expect to see a guy standing there in a pink sheath and heels, but what distressed me most was that the face, far from looking macho to begin with, no longer showed even the tiniest hint of masculinity. It was definitely me, but then again, it wasn't me. My long blond hair, falling on my shoulders and following the very obvious curves on my improvised chest completed the image of a woman. Despite Lizbeth's earlier denials, Suzanne had done some cutting. Some of my hair, near the front, had been layered slightly. The rest of my hair, parted in the middle, cascaded down over my front, shoulders, and back. I was definitely going to have to get my hair cut now. Although the curls from the rollers would disappear naturally within a day, there was no way that a guy would ever have his hair layered like this, at least not with hair as long as mine. If I pulled my hair back into my usual ponytail, the shorter hair in the front would continue to hang down around my face. I knew immediately that I'd have to admit to Lizbeth that I looked like the girls in my school, but even more incredibly, the way she did the makeup made me look like one of the senior girls. And my new, improvised shape was all female.

I was so mesmerized by my reflection that I didn't hear Suzanne come into the room. I turned around as she started speaking.

"Hi Liz, who's this?"

"Hi Suz, this is my friend Michelle."

Suzanne looked right at me.

"Hi Michelle, it's nice to meet you," she said smiling. Turning to Lizbeth, she said, "Liz, is Jimmy up yet? I wanted to know how he took our little joke."

"Yes, he's up. He was really upset, but his hangover kept him from shouting."

Suzanne giggled. "I can imagine. My head throbbed for hours this morning. Where is he, in the basement? I'm on my lunch hour and I have to get back to hospital, but I wanted to apologize to him first."

Lizbeth smiled, putting her hands on my shoulders. "You don't recognize your own cousin. This is Ashley Michelle."

Suzanne's jaw dropped as she stared at me. "Jimmy?"

"Ashley Michelle," Lizbeth corrected.

Looking me up and down, Suzanne said, "I can't believe it. You're absolutely stunning, but why are you dressed in Lizbeth's clothes?"

"What else could I wear after what you guys did to me?"

"Don't listen to him," Lizbeth volunteered quickly. "We made a bet. I bet that I could make him look so much like a woman that even he would be forced to admit that he looked like one. Ashley Michelle turned out even better than I suspected she would."

"I'd say that you won your bet easily. What do you say, Ji- Ashley?"

"Uh, I guess Lizbeth wins," I said gloomily. "I can't see anything masculine when I look at my reflection."

"You're wearing a corset?" Suzanne asked curiously as she felt my waist.

"Lizbeth dressed me. She said that I had to loose three inches."

"I borrowed the corset that you wore in the centennial celebration a few years ago," Lizbeth said.

"You're welcome to it, Ashley. I never use it and don't expect to need it again. How much is the bet for?"

"A shopping trip. I get to select his wardrobe and he has to wear what I tell him for the next ten days. Plus he has to pay for the new wardrobe."

"I guess that you're going to be broke after today, Ashley," Suzanne said.

"Lizbeth told me she works for Nicole on weekends. We're going to ask Nicole if she needs help for her catering business."

Suzanne smiled enigmatically as she raised her arm to look at her watch. "I'd say that's a good possibility, now that you lost your bet."

"What do you mean?"

Suzanne, still looking at her watch. "Oh, look at the time. I have to get back to the hospital."

"Can you drop Ashley and me off at the Mall?" Lizbeth asked.

"If you're ready to leave right now. I can't wait more than a couple of minutes."

"We'll be right with you."

"Wait," I said, "I need time to change and remove the makeup."

"There's no time. You'll have to go like that."

"I can't go shopping in a dress."

"Why not. Women go shopping in dresses all the time."

"But I'm not a woman."

"We've just agreed that nobody, but nobody, will know that."

"I'll know."

"Then there's nothing to worry about if you're the only one who knows."

Lizbeth was hurrying around her bedroom doing things. She pulled a pink purse out of her closet and dumped the contents on her bed before immediately shoving half of the stuff back in.

"Here's your purse, Ashley Michelle. Go down to the basement and get the lipstick that we used so that you can refresh it later. I'll meet you on the first floor."

"Lizbeth, I can't go like this," I said firmly. "I won't."

Lizbeth looked at me and held up her pinky. "Our deal was that you wear whatever I say for the next ten days. Okay, right now I say you wear that outfit for our shopping trip. Now go get your lipstick, Ashley dear."

I stared at her for a few seconds and then walked down to basement. I would have stomped my feet as I walked if I wasn't wearing heels. I grabbed the lipstick that she had used on my lips and threw it angrily into the purse. When I got back upstairs, Lizbeth was waiting.

"Here's your student ID, Ashley. You should put it in your purse."

I opened the purse and slid the ID in, then followed Lizbeth to the front door. My anger suddenly turned to terror at the thought of actually going outside in a dress. It was bad enough being dressed like this in the house, but what if I should betray myself in public. And with my legs covered only by thin wisps of nylon, I felt absolutely naked. I hesitated so long that Lizbeth came back and grabbed my arm, pulling me out of the house.

Sliding into the back seat of Suzanne's car, I pulled the door shut as Lizbeth got into the front. Suzanne pulled out of the driveway and sped down the quiet street. You could tell she was late because she barely stopped at stop signs and then accelerated away quickly, as soon as she could.

Suzanne stopped at the main entrance to the mall and I climbed reluctantly out of the back seat and closed the door. I don't care if I did look every bit like a woman, I was scared. I guess that was good because it would make my voice rise to a squeaky pitch. Lizbeth had started to get out of the car and then sat back down again quickly to say something to Suzanne. She finally got out and Suzanne sped away.

"She going to call Nicole and ask her to pick us up here at three o'clock," Lizbeth said. "Come on, girl. Let's do some shopping."

We entered the mall with Lizbeth practically dragging me along. Even though I was from another town, in another state, and couldn't possibly run into anyone that I knew, I was scared of being found out.

"Lizbeth, women are looking at me funny," I whispered.

"No, they're not. They're just checking out your figure, dress, shoes, makeup, and hair."

"But I've never been looked at like this before."

"That's because you were always dressed like a male before. Women don't look intently at males because they don't want to risk any misunderstandings, unless they really mean to catch the guy's eye."

"But guys are looking at me funny also."

"They're just checking you out and fantasizing what it would be like to hold you, kiss you, and–– have sex with you."

"What? Ewwwwwww," I said quietly.

Lizbeth giggled. We were halfway past a shoe store when Lizbeth pulled up sharply.

"Look Ashley Michelle. A 'buy one pair, get a second pair free' sale. Let's see if there's anything good left."

With Lizbeth in the lead we hurried through the store to where the women's shoes were. I stood alongside her as she picked up several pairs of shoes in her size and carried them over to a row of seats. Removing her shoes, she tried on a pair of dark blue single strap shoes with four-inch heels. She walked around in front of me for a few seconds and then walked over to a mirror to see how they looked.

"What do you think of these, Ashley?"

"They're nice," I said.

"Nice? You sound like a boy instead of a teenage girl."

"Well, duh. I am a boy," I whispered quietly.

"Not right now", she said, just as quietly. "You're a teenage girl, and unless you want somebody to identify you as a boy in a dress, you'd better start thinking, talking, and acting like a teenage girl."

"I don't know how," I said, but that was sort of a lie because I'd had plenty of opportunity to observe the girls that I ate lunch with everyday at school. I had worked very hard not to pick up any of their mannerisms.

"Then learn. Watch me, and other girls, and do what we do, then do the same things. To start with, you really have to work on your walk. You walk too much like a boy. Boys walk like they're following a railroad track, with one foot on either side of the rail, while girls walk as if they were walking on the rail. When walking, try to place one foot in front of the other. And in case you've never noticed, boys and girls stand differently, hold their bodies differently, and gesture differently. That's one of the things that give gays and lesbians away. They stand, carry themselves, and gesture like the opposite sex. But when you start mimicking women, don't exaggerate your movements too much or you'll look like a drag queen. Now, take your shoes off and try these heels on."

"That's okay. I'm fine."

"Ashley," Lizbeth said holding up her pinky.

I sighed and struggled to bend over to remove my shoes and then put the higher heels on. The corset severely restricted my movement and I couldn't breath while I was bent down, so I put the shoes on quickly and straightened back up.

"Stand up and walk around. How do they feel?"

"Okay, except they pinch my toes even more than yours do."

"Most women's shoes do that. You're just used to wearing sneakers all the time. Walk around while I get some more shoes. See if you get used to them."

While Lizbeth was off selecting more shoes, I duplicated her movements in front of the mirror to see what she was trying to see. Then I walked up and down the aisles near the seats until she returned. She had her arms loaded with shoes this time.

We spent about an hour and a half in the shoe store and Lizbeth selected four pairs to buy, all with four-inch heels. After paying for the shoes we continued down the main concourse until we came to a woman's store that advertised its discount prices as being the lowest in the mall. The aisles in the store were crowded with female shoppers and we had to work our way through to where Lizbeth was headed.

It turned out that the lingerie department was her goal and she started searching through racks and display tables as soon as we got there. Occasionally she would ohh and ahh and hold things such as slips or panties up in front of herself or me. As she looked through the racks, she put things that she wanted to keep, over her arm, or handed them to me.

After more than an hour in the store, she said, "We'd better get going if we're going to meet Nicole. She'll be out front any time."

Making our way to the front of the store, Lizbeth paid for the merchandise that she had picked up, and then we made a dash for the main entrance, our arms loaded with packages.

Nicole was already parked at the curb and we climbed into her car.

"Ashley," Nicole said, "you look beautiful. I never would have guessed that you were my cousin if Suzanne hadn't told me that you were with Lizbeth and how you were dressed."

"I can't deny that Lizbeth did quite a job on me," I said. "Nobody seems to have caught on. I'm glad that we're done in there, though.

"I didn't do so much," Lizbeth said. "Anyone could have done it. Ashley's face lends itself to this look, which is why all those men kept calling her Miss. And she does have the most beautiful hair that I've ever worked with. It's not all dried out and brittle like the hair of my girlfriends who use blow dryers constantly, and keep changing their hair color."

We were back to my hair again. Why hadn't I gotten it cut like Mom wanted? I probably wouldn't be sitting here in a dress now if I had.

After a five-minute drive through town, Nicole pulled into the parking lot of a giant thrift store. I'd thought we were going back to the house but I followed meekly along as Lizbeth and Nicole walked into the store. It looked liked the thrift was mostly devoted to women's clothing, and it looked even bigger inside than it had from the outside. Lizbeth and Nicole headed straight for the section that contained blouses and both started going through the long racks, their eyes quickly scanning any that appealed to them for imperfections, rips, or stains. In no time they were each acquiring a bundle to try on. I just stood behind them and held the selections as they emptied their arms occasionally, until I couldn't hold any more. Lizbeth helped me carry them to a dressing room while Nicole moved to the skirts rack.

"Take your dress off so you can start trying some of these on," Lizbeth said.

"Me?"

"Of course. They have a no return policy here. We have to scrutinize every piece before we buy it, and it'll be easiest to do that by seeing it on you."

I sighed. "What did you do before you had me for a dress dummy?"

"I always brought one of my friends, or had my sisters do the close, final examination while I modeled."

Nicole arrived with an armload of skirts. "Here's the first batch. How's it going?"

"Ashley is just about to start trying on the blouses. She can try on skirts at the same time."

I spent the next several hours changing clothes and modeling them. We went through the bundles pretty quickly, but when Lizbeth or Nicole saw something that they liked, they looked me over like the prize cow at a State Fair. They looked at the stitching, for signs of excess wear, and even at the label. If a garment passed their rigorous standards, they put it into a separate pile. After a large pile of skirts and blouses had accumulated, they moved on to dresses. There must have been a dozen dresses in the 'passed' pile when Nicole walked into the dressing room carrying a floor length, black, evening gown. The gown was definitely from a bygone era.

"Look what I just found!" she said excitedly. "They were just bringing in a new batch of clothes and I spotted this. I managed to grab it before a couple of other women reached the pile. It's marked at just five dollars. And look inside. The previous owner pinned a pair of opera length, kid leather gloves in there. They're worth fifty dollars, used, all by themselves.

"My God," I said, "it must be thirty or forty years old. I've only seen dresses like that in old movies."

"Exactly," Nicole said, beaming. "I think it must be from the early nineteen fifties, judging from the cut, but it looks brand new. Look how black the material still is. And it feels like silk."

Lizbeth immediately turned to examine it. "It looks like it's never been worn. Ashley, try this next."

"I don't have to. Look at the waist. I've tried on enough clothes during the past few hours to know that that won't fit me."

"Try it on anyway. I want to see how close it is."

I removed the skirt and blouse that I was wearing, and with Nicole's help I squeezed into the fifties dress. In the early fifties they sometimes wore them very, very tight, so instead of putting it on over my head, I had to step into it. The dress was unusually constructed and I never would have gotten the hem portion over my head, much less my hips or chest. The bottom tapered dramatically, like those ultra tight dresses that you sometimes see in old Hollywood movies of the period, but yards of pleated fabric had been added at the knees. It gave the impression that the wearer had a lot of room for leg movement below the knees, but that certainly wasn't the case. The added fabric folds radiating out from the knees hid a part of the skirt that actually extended almost to my ankles. And it didn't include the usual slit for walking that you see on most long dresses. It made the skirt portion more like a hobble skirt.

After the dress was on, but not zipped, I said, "This is too tight. I can't even walk in this. No wonder it's never been worn."

"This dress is for looking at, not walking in," Lizbeth said.

"Why would you buy a dress to look at it?"

"Not you, silly. It's for men to look at, while you stand there and look delectable."

Lizbeth tried to close the zipper without success. There was plenty of room in the hips area, it was actually quite loose there, but the waist was a couple of inches too narrow. From the ribcage up was fine and Lizbeth could make the two zipper sides touch by tugging on them.

"Why would anyone want something like this, these days?" I asked.

"There's a Fifties dance on Sunday. You have to come dressed in Fifties style clothing in order to get in. This is perfect for that."

"But it's too tight in the waist, and you'll have lots of trouble dancing because my calves are almost touching. My knees are touching."

"The waist can be adjusted. Stand still while I check over the entire dress."

As soon as she was done, Nicole said, "Girls, it getting late. We'd better get going. Dinner will be ready."

Lizbeth helped me remove the fifties dress and I, dare I say it, happily put the pink sheath back on for the ride home. While Nicole began carrying the rejected piles back to the racks, Lizbeth straightened and combed my hair because it had gotten quite mussed up while trying on all the clothes. She told me that we'd leave as soon as I freshened my lipstick, so while she returned another pile of rejected clothes, I took the lipstick from my purse and applied it as she had done to me. I guess it's a practiced art because it took me several attempts to make it look okay. I wiped the mistake off each time with a tissue, and kept at it until I got an even coating. I had been very careful not to slip and mess up my other makeup.

Lizbeth came in, looked at me, and said, "Very good, Ashley. Ready to leave?"

"Am I ever."

She grinned and, pointing to a pile of clothes, said, "Pick up those things and bring them to the cashier." She grabbed a second pile.

At the checkout I couldn't believe the low prices as the items were rung up. The entire bill came to just ninety-four dollars for two enormous piles of clothes. Blouses were a dollar each and skirts and dresses varied between one and two dollars, except for the gown, which was five dollars. The clothes that Nicole and Lizbeth had selected must have been very expensive at one time. Most had designer labels. The styles might be a little out of date, but Lizbeth she could fix that easily enough.

After everything was bagged and paid for, we carried it out to the car. Nicole was waiting at the curb and she zipped out of the parking lot as soon as we were in, taking just five minutes to get us home. At the house, we all had our arms full carrying the packages inside.

Entering the house, I said, "We spent all afternoon shopping and we didn't get a single thing for me. When are we going to get my clothes?"

Lizbeth turned to me. "Why Ashley dear, everything that we bought today was for you."

My strength left me and I dropped everything that I was carrying onto the hallway floor. "What? All we bought was girl's clothes."

"That's right. This is your clothing for the next ten days."

"You expect me to wear girl's clothing for the next ten days. No way."

Lizbeth just looked at me, put down her packages, and held up her pinky. "You agreed to wear what I said, when I said, for the next ten days."

I could feel the color draining from my face. "But I thought you meant that I would wear slacks and pullover shirts instead of jeans and tees."

"I can't help what you thought. I was very precise with my wording. If you don't believe me, I have a video tape of the whole thing. I had set up a camera before you came down this morning."

"You set me up!"

"The camera was only to record your reactions to the silly things that we did to you last night, but it recorded our bet and your transformation as well. I'm sure that Suzanne has watched it by now. We can all watch it after dinner."

"I suddenly don't feel very hungry."

"You will, once you smell the lasagna that we're having. Now carry your pretty new things to your bedroom and carefully hang them in the closet. Then take my dress off and hang it up. I'm sure that you need to use the toilet, so when you start to get dressed again, use one of the new control briefs that we purchased today. I'd like to see you in the dark blue miniskirt and the aqua iridescent blouse. Then fix your hair and makeup, and come downstairs to dinner. Oh, and wear your dark blue high heels. You need some practice. You were a little wobbly today in the shoe store."

I just stood there looking at her. She held up her pinky and flexed it. She had hooked me like a fish and landed me. I couldn't think of any way out. She hadn't lied, so I couldn't use that as an argument for not doing it. I appeared to have two choices, either do as she said, or get on a bus for home, which probably meant that my three cousins would never talk to me again for the rest of my life because I broke a Pinky Promise. As tempting as choice three was, I was unable to do it. I didn't know where my jeans were, nor the bus ticket. Knowing my cousins, they might even make me return to my hometown wearing a dress. No, the only thing to do was go along and make the best of it, for now. Maybe I could find a way out in the next couple of days while staying holed up in the house.

I carried everything to my room and put the clothes on hangers that I found in the closet. The four pairs of shoes were lined up on the floor of the closet and the lingerie went into the dresser. Lizbeth had selected a package that contained eight panties. There were two yellow, two pink, two light green, and two black. She had also purchased two bras, two control briefs, several slips, and two chemises. I changed out of the pink dress and, after using the bathroom, put on the clothes that Lizbeth had decided I should wear tonight. The new control briefs were heavily padded and filled out my hips and tush considerably. The package said, 'Enhances the figure of women that nature slighted.' At least I didn't have to remove and replace the corset. The new mini-skirt barely covered the dark, dense portions at the top of my stockings, and was a lot tighter than when I had tried it on, thanks to the new padding that I was carrying on my hips. Standing in front of the mirror, I could see that my backside had definitely taken on a female shape now, especially when seen next to my smaller waist. I fixed my hair and makeup, then put on the navy blue high heels and walked downstairs, taking my time on the stairs because I wasn't used to the stiletto heels on the shoes, and because my feet and calves were already aching from wearing Lizbeth's low heels all afternoon.

"Here's our beautiful and sexy party girl now," Suzanne said as I neared the bottom of the stairs. "Would you like some wine with dinner?"

"No, thanks. I don't think that I'll ever drink again."

"Because of the hangover, or because of what we did to you?"

"Both."

They all giggled, but I wasn't in the mood.

"You look wonderful, Ashley Michelle," Nicole said. "You really do make a beautiful girl. Those cops, the bus driver, and the ticket person were right."

"We're just bringing out her natural beauty," Lizbeth said, and then giggled.

Suzanne carried the long baking dish of Lasagna to the table and put it on a trivet to keep it from burning the table.

"Dig in, girls. Get it while it's hot."

Dinner was delicious, again. Nicole had made the lasagna and I had to admit that she was a great cook. No wonder her catering business was doing so well. I could only eat about a third of what I would normally have eaten because I filled up quickly, no doubt because of the corset. And I only joined in the conversation at dinner when I was dragged in by having been asked a direct question. I'm sure they realized it because they started a steady stream of questions to make me participate.

After dinner Suzanne said, "Your turn to clean up tonight, Ashley. Nicole and I did it last night and Lizbeth did the breakfast dishes."

I was outfitted with an apron and yellow plastic gloves, and shown where everything was. I cleaned the kitchen area while they went to sit and relax at the sofa group that we had used last night. When the dishes were done and the table and counters clean, I removed the gloves and apron and joined my cousins. I had decided against going directly to bed, although I didn't feel much like socializing.

I faced a new problem when I went to sit down. How do you protect your modesty in a miniskirt?

Lizbeth must have sensed my dilemma because she said, "Sit down holding your legs together and then cross your legs. Cross your legs like a woman does, not like a man does."

I held my legs together and sat down, as she said, then crossed my legs. I was able to cross my legs as she instructed, but it was uncomfortable. I was used to doing it the other way. Somehow that seemed more natural. I guess it was because of my manhood, although that wasn't a problem right now since it was still safely tucked up and away.

"It's only uncomfortable because you're not used to it," Lizbeth said. "As your muscles stretch you'll feel very comfortable. And it's a lot less effort than holding your legs together."

"Ashley," Nicole said, "Lizbeth mentioned that you'd like to help out in the catering business. That's possible now if you're still interested. I guess that you're going to need money for clothes after your ten days are up."

"Yes, I'm interested. What do you mean by 'it's possible now'."

"I only hire women. The name of my business is 'Powder Puff Catering'. Suzanne is usually our bartender, or head bartender when we need more than one, and Lizbeth heads the kitchen staff. I'm always on the lookout for good waitresses, though. Since this is largely a part-time job, I have trouble keeping a good staff. Are you interested?"

"Waitress? I-- guess so," I said tentatively. "I've never done anything like that before though." I was less concerned with having to serve food as I was with having to wear waitress clothes. I had thought that if I was hired to work with Nicole's company, I could get Lizbeth to forget that I had to wear what she ordered, at least while I was working.

"It's easy. We'll let you practice a little tonight and tomorrow, and by Saturday you'll be ready."

"Okay."

"Come on over to the kitchen."

I followed Nicole and watched as she filled a tray with plastic dishes and cups. Water was added to each of the cups, and the dishes were tripled up to simulate being filled with food.

"Okay, pick this up and carry it around the room. We use plastic for practice but real glasses and china when we cater. Keep walking and don't spill anything."

"One time around the room?"

"No, keep circling and walking between the furniture until I tell you to stop. Here's how you carry the tray."

After she demonstrated, I picked up the tray and she waved me on. I started walking around the furniture and then cutting through as if I was passing between tables. I had to constantly shift my carrying position when moving between the sofas and chairs as my speed of movement changed. I also had to really concentrate to always keep my balance because I was still a little unsteady on the stiletto heels.

I kept it up for an hour while my three cousins relaxed and talked. My arms were killing me when Nicole finally told me that I could stop, and my feet were aching from the high heels.

"That's fine, Ashley. You did very well. Now let's practice serving." She removed most of the stuff from the tray, leaving just two plates, to which she added potato chips and pretzels, and a pile of napkins and tiny paper plates. "Pretend that there are people sitting all over this room. Visit each sofa and chair and offer the people something to eat. Some people will wave you off, but never move away until everyone is satisfied. Never make remarks, or faces, about how much someone is taking. They can take everything on the tray if they want it, got it?"

"Got it."

"Good. Oh, one more thing. When bending over to serve, bend at the hips, not at the knees like you would when lifting heavy bundles. The food trays with hors d'oeuvres are light, and the men enjoy looking at the waitress' tush. It gives them a harmless thrill, and we like to please. It brings in more customers and more jobs."

"Got it. Tush in the air." Smiling I said, "Wouldn't they be surprised if they knew."

"What they'll never know won't affect them or us. Let the men have their fantasies. It doesn't harm us and it's good for business."

Over the next hour I pretended to serve the room. When I reached my cousins, they went through the pretense of actually selecting foods from the tray, putting chips and pretzels on their paper dishes. They kept me bent over, with my tush in the air, for five minutes. My back was starting to ache by the time they finished, but I continued to smile the whole time.

When I had completed the room, Nicole told me to start again. When serving this way, she said, the waitresses keep it up until the food is gone or they are told to do something else. I did the whole room over again and then Nicole said that I could stop.

"You did very good Ashley. You need some real life experience, but there's only one way to get that. Remember, one of the worst things that you can do is spill food on a guest. The second worst thing is to insult a guest. Try to limit your conversations so your tongue doesn't cause problems. The less said the better. Never get familiar with a guest, even if it's someone you know from outside the affair."

"Got it."

"Okay, you should practice carrying the full tray of glasses and plates again tomorrow, but there's one more thing that we should take care of tonight. When you're holding the tray against your chest, your boobs don't react right. They compress, instead of spreading out as real boobs would."

"That must be because they're made from pantyhose, instead of being real."

"Right. We have a solution for that. Take off your blouse and bra, and sit on that recliner over there."

I did as she said. The leather of the recliner was cold against my bare skin, but it started to warm quickly. Suzanne brought over a kitchen chair and sat next to me as Lizbeth and Nicole watched. After pulling on a pair of rubber gloves like she used at the hospital, Suzanne opened a box and withdrew something that looked like a women's breast.

"What is that?" I asked, recoiling from the lifelike mound.

"It's called a breast form. Don't worry, it's not real. It's intended to simulate a real breast for mastectomy patients, and it can be worn by simply placing it into a bra cup, or by gluing it onto the chest. Gluing it on means that it moves more naturally and your bra won't be shifting all over as it does now."

"Wait a minute. I don't want permanent breasts."

"They're not permanent, silly. I'm not doing a breast implant. This adhesive will only hold it on for two, or maybe three weeks at most, and you can remove them anytime using the solution that dissolves the special adhesive."

"Anytime? How long does it take to remove them?"

"About the same amount of time that it takes to put them on."

"Oh. Okay."

Suzanne applied the adhesive and held the breast forms in place until the adhesive set. When the breast forms were affixed, she touched up around the edges with adhesive so that the seams were virtually invisible, then applied makeup to cover the edges where they met my chest and to blend them with the color of my flesh.

"Okay, Ashley Michelle," Suzanne said as she peeled of the rubber gloves. "These will look like the real thing now. Men can even fondle them without ever knowing the difference, if you keep your bra on. The nipple doesn't respond to outside stimuli, as a woman's nipple would."

I sat up and shook my chest. I never expected to see women's breasts on my chest, but I had been experiencing a lot of firsts lately. The breasts continued to shake a little after I stopped wiggling, and looked like the real thing, except they were a little paler than my skin.

"They're enormous," I said. "And they're really heavy."

"I brought the size that Lizbeth requested."

I looked at Lizbeth's chest. "They're much larger than yours are," I said.

"I wanted you to have the size that worked best with your shape. I don't have a choice with my size, unless I get implants. I might do that in a couple of years. I'm only a B cup right now, while you're a C. The boys won't be able to stop looking at your chest."

I grimaced at Lizbeth's last remark, but only said, "They're the wrong color, and I don't think that they'll pass close examination."

"Unless they're sunbathing in the nude, women's breasts are rarely as tan as the rest of their body. I shaped the make-up to make it appear like you've been wearing a bathing suit."

"Oh, I see. I haven't had much sun yet, so couldn't I just have them the same color as the surrounding skin?"

"Okay, if that's what you want," Suzanne said, pulling the gloves back on again. When she has applied the new make-up, she sat up straight and said, "There, they're the same color as the surrounding flesh. If you go sunbathing, the colors will vary again."

"Will I have to do this every time I go swimming?"

"No, the makeup I used is a like a dye. It has to wear off or be covered by other makeup. That's why I wore these plastic surgical gloves. I didn't want to stain my hands."

"They can pass close examination now," Lizbeth said. "We didn't really get you any clothes that will allow people to actually see very much of your breasts, but they'll look completely natural through your clothes, even through very thin materials. Put your bra on."

I picked up the bra, pulled the old pantyhose out, put my arms through the straps, and stretched it round me. My cousins laughed at my efforts to fasten the hooks. Finally, Suzanne took pity on me and stepped behind me. Taking my hands, she showed me what to feel for and how to hook something that I couldn't see. With it hooked, I tried to adjust it so it fit the new breast forms, but I couldn't.

"The cups are too small," Nicole said.

"It didn't matter when they were filled with panty hose," Lizbeth said. "The new bras that we bought today will fit properly. Ashley," Lizbeth said to me, "go get one of your new bras."

I stood up and put on my blouse before going to my bedroom to get one of the bras. As I started to return to the basement I suddenly realized what I had done. A day ago it wouldn't have bothered me to walk through the house without a shirt, but now I was covering my chest just to go to my bedroom. This female persona was affecting my head.

Returning to the basement, I removed my blouse again. The girls were smirking so they must have realized what I had done also. I ignored them and removed the bra that I was wearing. It came off easily now that I understood what I should feel for behind my back. I struggled to put the new one on, but no one offered to help this time. It took several minutes but I managed to get it hooked. The breast forms fit comfortably inside the cups, and I realized that Lizbeth must have been planning this all along or I could have continued to use her bra.

Suzanne examined the fit and said, "It looks good. You passed for female without trying during your trip here, so no one will ever suspect that you aren't a real girl now. Even without makeup, a person's physique will define their gender. You have a slight build, like a girl, so the makeup only enhances the visualization and makes you look prettier. You thought that the makeup Lizbeth used today made you look like a woman, but it really only made you look like a different woman from the one that everyone else normally saw. You have a very pretty face, far too pretty for a boy, but we knew that you were sensitive about it looking too feminine from the way you reacted when you first arrived, so we didn't point that out."

"My male characteristics will start to develop soon."

"Maybe so, maybe not. You're sixteen now and that's really late on the puberty calendar. How many boys in your school look more like the girls than you do? Are there any?"

I didn't say anything because I couldn't think of anyone. As much as I wanted to scream out that it wasn't true, I knew that it was. That was probably why I was so desperately waiting for my beard to start filling in. I planned to grow a goatee as soon as possible.

"I thought not," Suzanne said, interpreting my silence correctly. "The truth is that some boys just never get very masculine looking, just as some girls never develop strong feminine characteristics. The clinical term is androgyny, and there are all kinds of causes such as chromosome confusion and low hormone production. Some people just fall into the middle of the scale that we use to define gender characteristics. And some people actually develop strong physical characteristics of the opposite gender. Women whose ancestors come from Mediterranean countries tend to have quite a bit of dark hair on their upper lips, imitating moustaches on men. And a large number of males actually develop very sizable breasts from a condition known as Gynecomastia. There's also a condition known as pseudo-Gynecomastia in men, where excess fat accumulates in the chest producing what appear to be breasts. Each year we're seeing an increasingly larger number of males having surgery to reduce their breast size, because newer techniques don't leave the terrible scarring that older methods did."

"I still have my male genitalia," I said, somewhat defensively.

"Of course you do. We're all born with our genitals and sex organs, so that doesn't change, naturally, but some people are born with both male and female genitalia. Sometimes only one sex is visible, while the other is hidden inside the body. If a person has both sexes, they're referred to hermaphrodites, and if the sex is the slightest bit confused, the person is referred to as 'Intersexed' or ITS. About twenty times every day in the US, surgery is performed on newborns to more clearly define their sexual appearance. I only mention that to convey just how blurred gender lines really are."

Suzanne lowered her voice slightly, making it softer. "Look, hon, boys and girls grow up looking and sounding pretty similar until puberty strikes us. That's when our hormones take over and start to reshape our bodies with the strong, defining characteristics of one sex or the other. Even with the things that do change, there are always degrees of change. You had quite a bit of pubic hair, which means you entered that stage quite a while ago, but since you haven't developed any strong male characteristics yet, it's unlikely that you will. You'll have to face the fact that you may never develop them as you reach your adult form over the next couple of years. That's most often a sign of hormonal imbalance. Males and females both produce androgens and estrogen, the hormones that shape our bodies, but our bodies are normally predisposed to produce higher levels of one or the other, depending on our defined sex.

"Your hips are wide, actually very wide, much more like those of a teenage girl than a teenage boy, and your upper torso and shoulders don't have the muscle mass that a teenage boy normally develops. I suspect that your body is producing higher levels of estrogen and other female hormones, while not producing nearly enough androgen to overcome it and mold your body with male characteristics. And scientists are still arguing over what makes our brains tell us that we're one sex or the other, but most seem to feel that our hormones have a significant role there as well. Understand?"

I nodded, although I didn't really understand. I was totally confused. I understood all her words, but couldn't believe that I had reached this point in my life without having someone prepare me for this. The financial situation at home had kept me from having anything but absolutely necessary medical attention since Dad had run off, so I guess no one knowledgeable about such matters had occasion to examine me, and talk to me about it. I determined that I would somehow find a way to get medical advice as soon as I got home. I knew that I wasn't a girl, even if my cousins didn't. I figured they were just trying to mess with my head.

"Good girl," Suzanne had said right after I nodded. "Since you're sensitive about your gender appearance, I'm really surprised that you let your hair grow so long. It really helps promote the idea that you're not a male. Speaking of hair, why don't we put yours up for tomorrow? I'll show you how to do it so you can start doing it yourself."

"But you just put it up in rollers last night?"

Suzanne giggled. "Unless you get a permanent, you have to put it up all the time because it loses its shape during the day. Look at how it's starting to droop and lose its body already." Suzanne held up a section of my hair and I could see what she meant."

"But you said that I'd look like a female even without the makeup and stuff."

"But you don't just want to look like a woman. You want to look like a beautiful woman."

"I don't want to look like a woman at all. I'm only doing this because I lost a bet."

"Are you so sure?" Lizbeth asked.

"What do you mean?" I asked her.

"It's a straightforward question. You deny that you want to look like a woman, but you've been wearing your hair longer than any guys I know. It's as long or longer than Ozzie Osborne's, and most other male rockers. You've told us that you don't have any male friends, and always hang around with the girls when you're at school. And you've silently admitted that you look more like a girl than any other guy in your school. On your trip here you used the excuse of losing your elastic bands to let your hair hang down around your face instead of being held back in a ponytail, all the way from Albany to Ohio. And it didn't bother you at all to wear a hair clip with a large iridescent butterfly in your hair, because you felt that you had a justifiable excuse if anyone questioned it. Every guy I know would have purchased a pocket knife at that bus stop and cut off his hair, before being seen like that. I think that you secretly want to look more like a girl, or maybe even be a girl. Don't you? You just want to make it seem that you're being forced into this."

"No, that's not true," I said, "and I really did lose the elastics." Then defiantly I added, "I'm not going to wear the curlers. I don't want to look like a beautiful woman."

"I think that you secretly do, so I want you to wear the curlers," Lizbeth said, "and you have to wear what I say for ten days."

I looked over at Lizbeth, who was holding up the small finger on her right hand. Technically, she was in the right. The curlers were 'worn', just as makeup was worn. I clenched my teeth, grimaced, and said, "Okay."

Suzanne took me over to the kitchen table to work on my hair, explaining what she was doing and why with each step. She even had me put most of my hair up by myself, watching me carefully to make sure that I did it right.

When we were done she said, "Very good. Tomorrow, Lizbeth will supervise when you remove them and help you get your hair brushed out. I'm sure that you'll still need a little help with your makeup also."

 

In bed later, I thought about the things that Suzanne had said about some males developing female characteristics such as breasts. I felt at the breast forms on my chest and wondered if they were covering real breasts that would soon push their way into existence. Was I one of those people who straddled a blurred gender line dividing men and women? Was my anatomy both male and female? I knew that I didn't have strong shoulders and arms, but were my hips really wider than a male's should be? What other female characteristics would I discover in myself? I also thought about Lizbeth's words. Did I secretly harbor a desire to look more like a woman? Secret even from me? Did I wish that I had been born female? Was I trying to act like one? Would I even develop a latent attraction for males? Or, was everything a lie because my cousins were just messing with my head?

I rolled over onto my stomach, my favorite sleeping position, but the two huge mounds that now seemed like a part of my chest made it uncomfortable, so I rolled back onto my side. My movements caused the nightgown to wrap tightly around my legs, restricting my movement further. I missed simply jumping into bed wearing a pair of boxer shorts, or nothing at all, and falling asleep. Now I had to remove makeup, put up my hair, wear curlers to bed, and sleep on my side or back, in a nightgown. It wasn't any fun being a woman. It was too much like work.

(continued)

  

  

  

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