The Secretary                  by: Kassie Hugo

 

Jenny looked at me as if I had just admitted to sleeping with one of the Spice Girls.

"This is your chance to get back into the workforce." The verbal bullets seared across the room at me.

"It's in Scotland," I pleaded.

"So you spend six months there and get a transfer back here." She ran a hand through her spiky blonde hair and sighed. "I took a lot of time setting this thing up and calling in some favours. You can't look a gift horse in the mouth."

"And what about us?"

"What do you mean, us?"

"You here on your own, me up in the wild mountains of Scotland amongst the kilted folk."

"Hey, I'll come visit."

"You make it sound as if I'm going to prison."

"God, you're so difficult! You've been out of work for a year now. I can't keep supporting the both of us. Think about it Mike, it's not fair."

I buried my head in my hands. "I know, I know. But this is...clerical work. It's stuff for a school leaver to do. Making tea and typing up letters. Shit, I can't even type."

"You can learn. Bernadette said she can load a program onto your desktop to teach you. It's not that difficult, believe me, and it'll be a useful skill to have."

I got to my feet and poured another glass of wine, looking round the flat. Where had I messed up? Losing the job at McFadden and Geeler was the first step. I sipped the wine and looked at the Marilyn print on the wall. I had lost the urge. The cutting edge as Nick Simmons used to call it. One morning I woke and it just wasn't there anymore as if a malevolent spirit had come by during the night and sucked it out of me.

I gazed at Jenny in her business suit - the expensive jacket and skirt, the silk blouse, the Gucci shoes. Every inch spoke of the successful business woman. She seemed so full of energy and decision that it made me jealous. She was climbing the corporate ladder faster than anyone I'd ever known. She had balls, I suppose you could say. Me, on the other hand, I had lost my balls last year and no matter how hard I looked I couldn't find where they'd been hidden. Even our lovemaking had turned into a once in a while affair, a chore I had to get through as a matter of penance.

"Okay, okay," I conceded. "Give Bernadette a call."

Jenny went out into the hall and picked up the phone without giving me a chance to change my mind. I had to get myself out of this rut. Maybe the time away would help me get my head together. I heard her mumbled voice and tried to tell myself that this was all for my own good. It didn't work. I'd got used to being lazy, lolling around the house watching daytime television. What was I going to do without Richard and Judy to keep me company in the mornings?

Jenny returned a while later, smiling. "Bernadette would like to talk to you."

"Great," I muttered without enthusiasm.

Jenny's smile faded and she gave me a hard stare. "We're doing this for you," she growled. "Now, go and talk to her."

I went into the hallway and picked up the phone. "I just want to say I'm happy to have you on board, Michael." She had a voice that grated on my spine like nails down a chalkboard. "Jenny's told me so much about you and I feel you'll be an asset to the new department once we get it up and running."

"That's very kind of you," I said.

"Now, there are a couple of things," she said. For an odd moment the silence hung in the air around me like a noose before she continued. "You'll be staying at Mrs Bacons Guesthouse, I'll book you in for the six months. She's a good friend of mine and she'll look after you. And you're going to have to learn to type so I'll be setting up the computer with a program to teach you. It would be helpful if you could grow your nails."

"Why?"

"To help with your speed, of course."

I shrugged. "That's no problem."

"Good," she purred. I thought of a big black cat with long, venomous nails. "I will see you in two weeks and I look forward to working with you."

The line went dead and I replaced the receiver.

"Well, that's sorted," said Jenny. She had a smug look of satisfaction on her face. "Now, sit down here," she added and I noticed she was holding a tube of cream.

"What's that?"

"It'll strengthen your nails and allow them to grow better. We can't go disappointing Bernadette. I've got some tablets with added Vitamin D which you can take as well." She rubbed the cream into my nails and told me that I had to do this four times a day. My life had begun moving again but not in the direction I'd intended.

On the following Tuesday I had a fainting fit. I was in the supermarket, doing the shopping for the weekend when I keeled over. I remember the aisle ways spinning round me and a packet of cornflakes spiraling through the neon air and when I came too I was surrounded by concerned faces staring down at me. I was helped to my feet and someone said they should call a doctor. I told them I was all right and made my way home, sat on the sofa feeling queasy, my hands shaking till Jenny came back from work.

During the long, tiresome journey up to Edinburgh, I thought about Jenny and what would happen with us being apart for so long. We had been married for three years and I loved her deeply but I knew what separation could do to a relationship. I hadn't been the best husband in the world over the last year, sometimes I figured I was more of a millstone around her neck than she would admit out loud. There were all those men at her office who wanted her, the ones with the crew cuts, Armarni suits and silver tongues. Like Jake Plato - I'm sure that wasn't his real name - with his rugged good looks and weekends climbing mountains or paragliding or something else that involved immanent death. What chance did I have with my shabby appearance, the hair hanging limply over my eyes, my body losing its hard muscle through inactivity? Once or twice we stopped at a station and I looked at my bag and thought about going back. But I didn't think Jenny would forgive me if I did that.

I found the boarding house run by Mrs Bacon quite easily. It was a big building with numerous rooms, surrounded on one side by a huge garden. Mrs Bacon greeted me cheerfully at the front door. She was a rotund woman with a shiny, homely face, her eyes bright as buttons. She wore a floral print dress and her hair was filled with sharp, wiry grey curls. Mrs Bacon had run the boarding house for five years now, inheriting the building from her Grandmother. There were ten rooms which she let out to various companies who wanted somewhere reasonable for their staff to lay their heads. Although I was the only visitor at the moment, Mrs Bacon assured me that others were booked to stay and the place would soon fill up.

She cooked and cleaned for the residents and in return she earned a tidy living. That wasn't the only thing she did, however, she ran a nice little side line in making wedding and bridesmaids dresses. That was her real passion, she told me. There was a tailors dummy over by the living room, draped in ivory silk and beads.

"I've got four bridesmaids dresses to make on top of that and all by the end of the month," she said and threw her eyes to the ceiling. "Where I'll find the time, God alone knows."

The bedroom she showed me up to was neat and functional with a double bed, wardrobe and a dressing table. "The shower is down the hall," she said. "Everyone has to share, I'm afraid. In the morning it's every man, or woman, for themselves." She giggled and her face seemed to glow.

She cooked me a nice meal and then I told her I was tired and that I should get a good nights sleep before going into the office the next day. I went up to my room and disrobed. I looked at myself in the mirror. My chest had become flabby and the nipples seemed a little larger than before. They were sensitive to touch as well. I shrugged and did twenty press ups deciding it was time I started getting myself fit again.

I slipped between the bed sheets and turned out the light, thinking about Jenny alone at home, feeling my gut wrench at the sudden thought that Jake was there with her, leering down at her cleavage.

I shook the thought from my mind. That kind of thing could drive a man mad.

I walked into an empty office that had a slight chill in the air. I could feel my nipples standing out beneath the cotton of my shirt. It sent a shiver down my spine. There was another office at the end of this one and I knocked on the door but there was no one there. I looked at my watch. I was early. I looked around. There was a desk and computer terminal near the door and on the desk was a note, obviously from Bernadette. It said she would be late and that I was to use the program on the computer to develop my typing skills. I looked down at my nails. They were growing longer and seemed to glow at the end of my fingertips. I had poked my eye with one that morning and I was having to adjust the way I handled things because of them.

I sat down and switched on the terminal and loaded the typing program. I was quite clumsy at first but after the first hour I felt I was getting somewhere.

Bernadette came up behind me like a shark seeking its prey. I jumped when I suddenly sensed her. "Nice to see you hard at work," she said.

She was a tall, imposing woman, her raven hair pulled back tightly over her scalp, tied with a black ribbon, the hair flowing down to the small of her back in a neat pony tail. Her face was angular, holding an austere kind of beauty that would be hard to forget, the red gloss over her lips glistening like blood beneath the fluorescent lights of the office. Her eyes were wide and held deep in them a strength I could only imagine. She wore a plain white blouse beneath a long black frock coat, tight trousers that showed off her elegant figure and boots that rode up her shins with lethal 4 inch stilettos. Even when I stood up she was taller than me.

Bernadette was a hard task master and she had more than enough work for me. I didn't particularly like her but the thought of going back to Jenny empty handed and out of work again kept me there. That first day she gave me twenty letters to type of which eighteen were returned with typing errors. She kept me there till after eight and I returned home aching from head to toe.

"Well, I must say," she growled as I put on my coat to leave, "I was expecting more of you. If you are going to be my secretary you'll have to pull your socks up Michael. Think on that tonight. I will see you bright and early in the morning."

I left for Mrs Bacons Guesthouse with a heavy heart. As I sat on the bus, there was a man sat opposite. He was staring at my long nails and grinning to himself. Bernadettes voice haunted me all the way home and I thought of the next six months and wondered how I could possibly last the distance.

Mrs Bacon had a hot meal waiting for me when I got back. I ate it sullenly and my conversation flowed like glue. I needed to talk to Jenny. I wanted to hear her voice but when I called I just got the answering machine. I went up to bed and looked at myself in the mirror. I took one of the nail pills and sat there for a while thinking this was all a big mistake. I should be at home, with my wife, not stuck up here working for a dragon. I tried to tell myself it was just because I hadn't been working for a while that I was so tired. I did a few stretches and then stripped down to my underwear. The fleshiness of my chest seemed more pronounced and the nipples stuck out like buttons. I touched them and shivered with pleasure. That was so weird. I forced myself to do twenty more press-ups and then went to bed and slipped into a coma.

"Come into my office, Michael," said Bernadette as she breezed past me that morning.

I sighed and grabbed my note pad and followed her. She had pulled a chair round to her side of the desk in front of her. "Sit down," she commanded. I did. I wasn't sure I liked being this close to her. She took my hands and looked at my nails and tutted to herself. "They seem to be getting a little brittle. "Have you been using the cream Jenny gave you?" I nodded. Bernadette reached into her side drawer and pulled out a small bag. She opened it and took out a file and buffer. Then she set to work on my nails, tapering them and giving them a shine so that they glimmered under the light. Then she coated them with a protective sheen of clear gloss. When she had finished she looked at them appreciatively and smiled to herself. "There, that's better." Suddenly my hands looked slim and feminine and I felt a little gooey inside. It was as if she had pushed me another inch closer to where she wanted me. The perfect secretary. And I hadn't objected. I had just let her do it.

Bernadette gave me the list of things to do for that morning and of course I got most of them wrong. She called me back into her office again that afternoon and glared at me severely. "Do you want to go back to Jenny and tell her that you have failed. This is a job a school girl could do."

"I'm sorry Bernadette," I mumbled.

"You will call me Miss Adams," she snapped and I flinched. "Really, I don't know what to do with you."

"I'm doing my best," I said.

"It's not good enough," Miss Adams growled. "I'll give you to the end of the week. If I don't see a vast improvement in your work then I'll have no option but to find the services of another secretary." She dismissed me with a nod.

I was two days into the job and already I was in trouble.

"Her barks worse than her bite," said Mrs Bacon when I finally got home at nine o'clock that night.

"I'm not sure I'd like her to bite me."

Mrs Bacon was sewing the hem of one of her dresses as I sat at the dinner table eating the stew she had made. I looked at the fine folds of the material that she had made the dress out of and thought of Jenny on her wedding day. How beautiful she looked and how perfect was the moment. Where had that time gone? What had changed so much in me? I finished the meal and tried to phone Jenny again. Once more I got the answer phone. I thought irrationally that she should be sat by the phone waiting for my call and a pang of jealousy at some hidden suitor swept through me. Mrs Bacon saw the look on my face.

"She's probably working late," she said. Mrs Bacon, I had decided, could see the best in Joseph Stalin. But he has such a nice moustache, she would say, her face beaming. I forced a smile and went up to my room.

Things had started to happen to my body. Weird things. My flesh was less muscular and the skin softer, not to mention the enlarged nipples and their increased sensitivity. I went to shave and found that I didn't need to. My face was still smooth. I was a once a day man normally even if I didn't generate a great deal of stubble. My face seemed to have a glow to it as well, which while not unattractive in an androgynous way, certainly wasn't what I had become used to.

Although I was tired, I forced myself to stay awake. About twelve I went down to the phone and tried to call Jenny again. This time she answered.

"Where've you been," I asked. It sounded too much like an accusation but I was a little frayed around the edges.

"Working," she replied. I heard a noise in the background and asked her pointedly if she was alone. "Of course I am, you idiot. How's it going?"

I wanted to say it was hell on earth but I knew that would disappoint her. I told her I could manage but that I missed her. We talked for half an hour and then she said she had to get some sleep. She'd call me over the weekend. I felt better having talked to her. At least I didn't feel so adrift. I went to bed and slept the sleep of the dead.

I was late for work the next morning and Bernadette was sat there waiting for me. As I ran from the bus stop I was conscious of my chest bouncing up and down beneath my shirt. There was something wrong down there and as soon as I got the time I was going to see a doctor. Hey, doc, I think I'm growing breasts. The stupidity of it made me laugh.

Bernadette glared at me across from her desk as I came in sweating and gasping for breath. I apologised but she didn't want to hear my excuses.

"I warned you yesterday," she snarled. "I think a punishment is in order."

I looked at her. What was she going to do? Put me over her knee and spank me? I was tempted to tell her where to go but the look in her eyes stopped me. It was fiercesome. Like two fire balls screaming across the cold air between us. "The toilets need cleaning," she said. "You'll find some equipment in the cupboard over there. The cleaner is off sick for the rest of the week so I'll expect you in an hour earlier every morning to clean the place up."

"You've got to be joking," I exclaimed.

"Would you prefer me to terminate your employment right here and now? I'll even give Jenny a call to tell her I'm doing it."

Reluctantly, I went to the cupboard. Reflected in the office window behind me, I could see Bernadette smiling cruelly to herself. She was really enjoying this. I cleaned the toilets from top to bottom which put me behind schedule with the secretarial work that needed to be done. I worked till eight again and wondered how much more of this I could swallow. Was I really such a wimp? As Bernadette left for the evening, I plucked up the courage to ask her if I could have some time off to get my hair cut.

"Certainly not," she snapped. I tried to raise a decent objection but she ignored me and walked out the door, her sharp heels clicking rhythmically on the floor.

My mistress had spoken.

I dreamed of Bernadette that night, that she came into my room clad in a black leather basque and thigh boots, a riding crop in her hand. She flayed the skin on my body till it glowed bright red and I knelt at her feet and licked her boots clean. I woke shivering with expectation in the early hours, wrapped in cold and darkness. What was this woman doing to me? My heart was beating furiously and for some strange reason the image had aroused me.

I was in the office for eight o'clock, following Bernadettes list of chores for the cleaning, hoovering, polishing, tidying her cluttered desk, and, of course, the toilets. For once she seemed pleased with my endeavours and the morning went quite well. I only gave her one letter with one typing error on it and though she swept past my desk with a sneer she didn't come out with any comment. She even let me off work at six. I decided to celebrate this victory with a drink at the pub opposite the office. I had enough on me for a swift half.

The middle-aged bar man, beer gut hanging over his trousers, face ripped with broken blood vessels, came over to me and smiled. "What can I get you love?" Love? I looked around me to see if I was in one of those "strange" bars by mistake. There didn't seem anyone overtly camp, no drag queens swanning by the mirrors or blokes kissing each other in shady corners. I ordered my half a lager and took the change out of my pocket. My nails glinted in the low bar light. As I handed the man the money, he took it and briefly squeezed my hand and I suddenly realised that he thought I was a girl! I pulled my hand away and let him have the change.

I got through the rest of the week unscathed. My typing got over 50 words per minute which Bernadette said was satisfactory and my errors were down to an acceptable level too. I was still getting into the office early and leaving late and by Friday I was ready to spend the whole weekend in bed. I called Jenny and told her I had survived. The only worrying thing was that my chest had swollen some more. I asked Jenny if there was anything I should know about the pills she had given me.

"They're just vitamin supplements silly," she said and giggled. I didn't know what humour there was in my query but it tickled her. I'd ask Mrs Bacon if she knew of a good GP. Maybe I had some strange, exotic disease that could only be cured by bed rest and copious quantities of daytime TV.

"Can I ask you a favour?" Said Mrs Bacon. She was fiddling with the bust of one of the bridesmaids dresses.

I was eating some toast and watching children's television. It was heaven. "What?"

"This dress just isn't sitting properly," she sighed and stood back to look at it. The material was pink satin, with a flared skirt and puff sleeves. It looked okay to me but how would I know. "Would you mind putting it on while I straighten it out?"

I choked on my toast. "Pardon?"

"Well, you're the right size and there's no one around. These tailor dummies are okay but they don't give the full effect. Would you mind?" She said it so matter-of-factly that I nearly burst out laughing.

Instead, I went bright red. "I can't wear a dress!"

"Oh hush now, please it'll only take a moment. Please Michael, I have to get these out for Monday."

I finished the toast and said okay against my better judgement. Mrs Bacon beamed again and before I could change my mind she went up to her bedroom. She came down a moment later with some underwear in the same colour and material as the dress. "I have to wear those too?" I objected.

"Don't be daft, can't have you bulging out all over the place." I went into the kitchen with the underwear and took my own clothes off. The panties slid up my thighs and covered my maleness and, as I looked down, it might never have existed. Unabashed, Mrs Bacon burst into the kitchen with some knickers to pad out the bra. She took one look at my chest and exclaimed: "Well we won't have to do much padding there!"

She was right. Maybe it was some odd form of water retention. I put on the silk brassiere and she clipped up the back. My breasts, because that's what they were now, felt oddly comfortable in the garment, caressed on all sides by the panelling. "You've got quite the figure on you," said Mrs Bacon. I blushed again as she led me back into the lounge.

She had taken the dress off the tailor dummy and it now lay draped across the sofa in a froth of silk and beads. I stared at it, my breath stolen by its awesome femininity. My whole skin buzzed with a sudden excitement and when I looked down my nipples had become erect and peeked through the soft material of the bra. Mrs Bacon held out a stiff underskirt for me to wear to give the dress its natural body. I stepped into it and stood there awkwardly as she lifted up the dress. The pink satin caught the light and I could hear the soft rush of the material as it succumbed to gravity. She unlaced the bodice and then lifted it up and fitted the dress over my head. The puff ball sleeves slipped over my arms and the dress settled around me. It was heavy but strangely comforting and seemed to encase me like a silken womb. Mrs Bacon went behind me and tightened the lacing, giving me a fuller figure and pushing my breasts up into a decent cleavage.

It was a perfect fit.

She helped me up onto the low coffee table and I stood there while she fiddled with the hem and the bust, fussing over the dress, murmuring to herself as she went about her business. I was encased from head to toe in silk and felt so sensual that at times I thought I was going to pass out. Mrs Bacon smiled at me as if she knew what was going through my mind.

"It's a beautiful dress," she said. "You look absolutely stunning. Perhaps you should have been a girl."

Then suddenly there was the deep clearing of a throat. I looked at Mrs Bacon as she stared past me towards the door. "Oh," she said and dropped the hem of my dress.

"Hope I'm not disturbing you," came a voice. "The front door was open." The man was tall and rangy with a severe face. He wore a black suit and looked as though he had just attended a funeral. My heart was hammering in my chest. "You were expecting me?" He added.

"Of course, of course," breathed Mrs Bacon. She looked up at me.

"Mr Holmes from Freedman and Jefferson. You said you could cater for me this weekend."

"Yes," said Mrs Bacon. "Er, this is..." She struggled for something to say and then blurted. "Michelle, my niece."

He looked at me. For a terrible moment, his grey eyes gleamed with a strange kind of lust. I wanted the ground to open up and swallow me. "That's a very pretty dress, young lady." I blushed. My knees trembled.

Mrs Bacon helped me down from the table and sat me on the sofa while she took Mr Holmes up to his room. I sat there, hands clasped in my lap, in a state of terror. He thought I was a girl. I looked at the long, full skirt, ran a hand down the soft material, staring at my neatly manicured nails. Of course he thought I was a girl. I looked like a girl. Mrs Bacon came back a while later. "Oh dear, no," she said. "I totally forgot."

I didn't say anything. I was still trembling with excitement as well as fear. I had never felt like this before. Then I got up and rushed into the kitchen, the skirt sweeping around my legs. I pulled off the dress and the underwear as Mrs Bacon followed me.

"What are you doing?" She asked unperturbed by my nakedness.

"Changing. Isn't that obvious." I couldn't be like this. It wasn't right. My breasts hung pendulously as I bent to pull on a my underpants.

"But you can't. He thinks you a girl."

"Well, I'm not. You'll have to explain."

"That's Mr Holmes, dear. He just wouldn't understand." She clasped her hands in front of her as if praying. "Freedman and Jeffers are run by the Mormons. They're very upright and they just wouldn't understand that you were helping me out."

"I'm sure you're misjudging him."

"No I'm not," she said more severely. "Oh, Michael they're one of my biggest clients. I can't afford to lose them."

"What do you expect me to do?" I said pulling on my T shirt.

"He's only here till Sunday night. You could pretend until then, couldn't you?"

"Pretend to be a girl? You must be joking." But suddenly the thought was stuck in my mind. Hadn't I got the most wonderful thrill out of wearing the dress?

"That's it then, I'll have to lose the contract with Freedmans." She got up and headed for the door. How I fell into this trap I don't know but she looked quite pathetic walking out there like a French aristocrat walking to the guillotine.

"Oh for..." I started. "Alright. Just for the weekend."

She beamed and ran up to me and kissed me. "Wait there," she cooed.

I looked at the wedding dress and couldn't resist picking it up, pressing the cold silk to my body once more. Stop it, I told myself and put it back down. I couldn't find this kind of thing exciting. That's a very pretty dress, young lady. The words shuddered around my mind.

Mrs Bacon came back with a dress for me to wear and a pair of heels. I slipped back into the underwear, including a pair of wool knit tights, and put the dress on. It was a simple, short sleeve affair in viscose and polyester, with a knee length skirt and nylon lining. Mrs Bacon sat me down and added a little makeup and brushed out my hair to a more feminine style. I had that feeling again. An excitement deep down. Something I could not explain to myself, let alone anyone else.

So it was that I sat down to a light lunch with an old maid and a religious fanatic, wearing a dress. The thing was, I found it quite comfortable and once I got over the initial embarrassment I began to actually enjoy being a girl. Mrs Bacon moved some clothes and makeup into my room and gave me some tuition on walking and posture and Mr Holmes seemed to hang around far too much for my liking.

"What's wrong with your voice?" Asked Jenny when she called that night.

I felt so guilty. I couldn't tell her that I was standing in the hall in a cream shift dress and high heels and that I was looking at myself in the mirror as I talked to her. "I've got a cold," I said.

Mr Holmes was sat in the living room reading his bible and I felt the unnatural urge to go over to him and cave his head in. If it wasn't for him, I wouldn't be in this predicament. He kept trying to involve me in conversation and if I didn't know any better I'd have said he fancied me. That night when I went to bed there was short baby doll nightie on the cover. I normally sleep naked but I put the nightie on and settled down to sleep. It was a strange, exotic experience. I stared down at my breasts again, their contours visible through the translucent material. I couldn't help it and lay there for an hour or more stroking my nipples with pleasure. A whole new world had been opened to me.

Mr Holmes dumbfounded us on Sunday afternoon when he explained that he would be staying another week to attend a conference in the city centre. My mouth dropped and my heart sank.

"What are we going to do?" I asked Mrs Bacon. She fussed around her dresses and I watched her with growing annoyance. Then her face brightened.

"I must give Bernadette a call, she'll know what to do."

"You can't tell her!"

"Don't be a silly girl. She'll know what to do." She went out and I heard her on the phone. She came back a moment later and said: "She wants to talk to you."

My heart sank. I went into the hall. "Mrs Bacon tells me you make quite a fetching young lady." I closed my eyes and could see her smirking as she spoke to me. "I'm quite happy for you to come to work as Michelle tomorrow - it should be quite an adventure for you. Mrs Bacon will arrange a nice outfit for you and you're to follow her instructions implicitly. You may be able to fool old Mr Holmes but you have to be perfect for the outside world. I will see you tomorrow bright and early." The line went dead. I hadn't even spoken a word. My life was being taken away from me by outside forces. Where was this going to end?

Mrs Bacon made me go to my room and came up a while later with a waxing pot and electric heater. I told her that I couldn't do this but she fussed and pleaded until I gave in. She waxed me from head to foot until I felt like a plucked chicken. Then she plucked my eyebrows and told me to wash my hair. She put my hair in curlers and then put a plastic cap over it. She said it would be uncomfortable but I would have to sleep in it. Finally she painted my nails in a pretty shade of pale green. "I'll be up before you in the morning and we can work on the makeup then." I didn't get much sleep that night. The rollers in my hair were uncomfortable and my heart wouldn't stop pounding in my chest. What had I let myself in for? It was one thing to swan around the house in a dress, with only Mrs Bacon and on obviously short-sighted religious maniac for company, it was another to step outside into the real world.

Mrs Bacon came into my room at six the next morning carrying clothes on a hanger. She took the curlers out of my hair as I sat there in the baby doll and brushed it out. I went to the bathroom and washed and then returned to put myself under her expert hand. She applied a light foundation to my face, then eyeliner and shadow with a hint of blusher on the cheeks and finally swept a dark pink gloss over my lips. She brushed my hair again and let me look in the mirror. No one would know that I wasn't a girl. I even had the breasts. They had seemed to swell even more over night and they fitted snugly into the cream bra that Mrs Bacon handed me. I slipped on the panties and a garter belt and rolled some barely black 10 denier stockings up my legs. The sensation rippled over my flesh and made me feel light headed. Mrs Bacon handed me a sheer blouse and I buttoned it up with nervous fingers. You could see the bra through the material and I thought it was far too risqué.

"It's very feminine," she said. "All the girls like to show a little underwear. It adds a sense of mystery."

She gave me a knee length pencil skirt and I stepped into it and zipped up the back. It was tight enough to enhance my figure, showing off my hips but it wasn't uncomfortable. She made me step into a pair of 3 inch court shoes and then I walked up and down the room until she was confident my movements were entirely feminine. Finally she clipped on some earrings and put a thin silver chain with a heart around my neck. Then she sprayed a little musk over me. Mrs Bacon led me over to the full-length mirror and I was amazed at what I saw.

I looked pretty and sophisticated. I looked like my sister for godsake. Mrs Bacon gave me a jacket in the same design as the skirt and I looked every inch the pretty little secretary. It was nearly half seven before I was ready, standing in the hallway a Morichino bag slung over my shoulder. "I can't do it," I said. "I can't." Panic welled up inside me. I could feel the clothes clinging to my body in an ever present reminder of my femininity.

"Yes you can." Mrs Bacon opened the door and quite forcibly pushed me out. The cool morning air wrapped around my stockinged legs as the door slammed behind me. I stood there wracked with fear for a while as people moved along the street below. I had suddenly become agoraphobic. I looked down, my nipples were standing out beneath the sheer material of my bra and blouse. I pulled my jacket tight across my chest and folded my arms. Get a grip, I told myself and stepped down onto the street. My heels clicked furiously on the concrete and I felt that the world and all its friends was looking at me. The tight pencil skirt clung to my thighs and my hair flounced around my shoulders. I could taste the lipstick around my mouth and smell the sweet scent of my perfume. The street ahead seemed a million miles long, each step taking me further from the sanctuary of Mrs Bacons Guesthouse I walked slowly, taking girlish steps, holding the bag with one hand and flexing the wrist of my other as Mrs Bacon had taught me.

I got to the bus stop, trying not to catch anyones eye. A man was looking at me as if he wanted to do something more than that. I turned away and feigned interest in a shop window. The bus approached and I climbed aboard with the rest of the workers only this time as Michelle, a pretty girl in a smart business suit. What in Gods name would Jenny say? In my most feminine voice, I asked for a return ticket. The bus driver winked at me and took my money.

The journey seemed to take forever. A business woman sat down next to me and began leafing through a copy of Cosmo. The man opposite, who had been at the bus stop, insisted on undressing me with his eyes. I could feel myself going bright red. I should have brought a book to bury my head in. Finally we got to my stop and I alighted, rushing to the office before my heart gave into the panic. There was a safe world in the office, I thought.

My ordeal was only just beginning though. Bernadette was stood by my desk, grinning at me as I entered, the dark red lipstick she wore like a bloody gash across her mouth. "Well, well," she said. "What a pretty little sissy you are?" Her eyes bored deep into me and I swear she could see all that was inside.

I clasped my hands in front of me and looked submissively down at my shoes. I didn't want to. I wanted to give back as good as I got. But there was a power within her that I had no hope of combating. Not dressed as a girl and looking so pretty and vulnerable.

"What shall we do with you?" She sneered.

"What do you mean?" I whispered.

"First, I think we shall teach you some manners," said Bernadette. "Come over here."

I went over to the desk nervously. Before I could react, Bernadette pushed me over the desk and pinned me down. I let out a girlish squeal and tried to struggle as she hitched up the back of my skirt. What was she doing? There was a sudden rush of air and a riding crop landed sharply against my backside. "You can't-"

"Be quiet," she shouted and another blow landed across my panty covered flesh. Tears came into my eyes. "You are at my mercy, young lady. How would it be if I called Jenny and told her what you are wearing? As we speak, Mrs Bacon is removing all your male clothes from your room and replacing them with girlie things. So you will do as we say or we'll throw you out in the street in your pretty little baby doll." Fear rushed through my body and that strange, potent excitement as if I had always been this defenceless object of her vulpine attentions.

"Okay, okay!" I screamed in panic.

Thwack. Another blow landed across my stockinged thighs. "You will refer to me as Mistress. When ever you speak to me you will address me as Mistress."

"Yes."

Thwack. "Yes, Mistress." I screamed again.

Tears blinded me. I could feel my flesh burning, the stretch of my stockings over my calves and thighs, the garters cutting into my buttocks. My breasts pressed against the table top, the bra straps wrapped over my shoulders.

"You are a weak little sissy," she growled and hit me again. "What are you?"

"I can't."

Thwack. I burst into tears. "What are you?" Screamed Bernadette, raising the riding crop again.

"I'm a weak little sissy!" I cried. She let me go and I crumpled to the floor, sobbing. She stared down at me with a victors sense of satisfaction. She had won. She had transformed me. I had no choice but to be her sissy slave. After I'd stopped crying, she made me go into the ladies washroom and repair my makeup. I looked at myself in the mirror. So this was what I had become. This is what the world wanted to make me. Sissy slave to a mistress.

Mistress Bernadette spent the day delighting in my humiliation. She got me to walk up and down the office, working on my posture until I was moving naturally as a woman. She taught me to lighten my voice and by the time I left for Mrs Bacons Guesthouse that night there seemed to be no semblance of Michael left in me.

Mrs Bacon was waiting at the door for me when I arrived. Her features seemed harsher than before and I wondered how long these two women had been contriving to change me into their perfect female slave. "Go upstairs to your room young lady," Growled Mrs Bacon, "and change into the clothes laid out on your bed. Then report back to me."

I went up to the bedroom. There was a short frilly maids uniform on the bed along with fresh underwear and stockings. I took off my clothes and put on the outfit, fitting the white lace cap with a pin to my hair. Then I went back down again.

Mrs Bacon made me curtsy in front of her and said I was also to address her as Mistress. She made me clean and dust the bedrooms in my pretty new outfit, following me like a malevolent shadow and punishing me when I made a mistake. It was one in the morning by time I had finished and she dismissed me. Another pretty baby doll nightie waited on my bed along with a tape that was to play as I went to sleep.

I lay down to the voice of my mistress. You are to be a pretty sissy slave. At all times you will endeavour to make yourself pretty for me. You will wear pretty, sexy underwear in lace and silk. You will wear stockings and you will conduct yourself in a girlish manner at all times..." The words drilled into my mind and pushed away all my masculinity.

I followed the same routine for the rest of the week. By the end of it my movements were graceful and feminine and the looks I got on the bus to work were ones of admiration. By day I was an elegant and efficient secretary to Mistress Bernadette and by night I was Mistress Bacons sissy maid. It didn't leave much time for thinking. I didn't dare call Jenny. What could I say? Would she even recognise my voice now that Mistress Bernadette had trained me to talk like a girl.

The next Monday I arrived at work to find extra desks in the office and new members of staff seated at the terminals. They all accepted me as a girl and called me Michelle. Mistress Bernadette eased her severe instruction of me and began to treat me as a proper secretary saying she was pleased with the way I had progressed.

A month into my new job, I was sat at the terminal typing the minutes of a meeting Mistress had held that morning. I was wearing a silver grey silk blouse and flared short skirt, my nails painted a pale shade of pink. That weekend, Mistress Bacon had taken me to the hair salon and my hair now fell about my shoulders in thick blonde curls.

"You must be Michelle."

My heart went up into my mouth. Jenny looked at me and smiled. Then she stepped into Bernadettes office and closed the door. A while later, the intercom buzzed and I was told to go inside. I took a deep, fearful breath and stepped inside.

"Well, well," beamed Jenny. "I would never have thought it possible. She's such a pretty girl. I must congratulate you Bernadette."

Mistress Bernadette leaned back in her chair. "I must say it was easier than I expected."

Jenny walked around me, giggling to herself. "Money well spent, I'd say." She stared at me. I blushed with terror. "What's your name girl?" She scowled.

"M-Michelle," I stammered.

"Well, Michelle," she smiled. "You'll be leaving with me tonight. I have a position available for a personal secretary. I've just started a new business with my boyfriend Jake and we'll be needing a pretty little sissy maid to run around after us." The realisation welled up on me. "You were a pathetic husband," Jenny continued. "Now I've got a real man to look after me so I thought you might be a little superfluous to my needs. But Bernadette here, came up with such a lovely plan I couldn't resist. You'll be such a talking point at dinner parties."

 

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