Trick of the Mind - 06 by Maeryn Lamonte Melanie Ezell's big closet ultimate writer's challenge — Written From The Heart Thanks to Wren Erendae Phoenix for editing/proofing. I slipped on my pyjamas and admired my newly hairless body dressed in the pale pink satin chemise that my imagination had conjured when Jen described hers earlier. I actually looked and felt quite feminine for a change, and enjoyed the experience of padding about the hall in my nightie and bunny slippers before heading off to bed for an early night.

I spent the following day wearing a silver-grey dress with a very short puffball skirt, silvery tights and sandals. Dressing up in private or with just one or two friends was one thing, heading into a busy university on Monday morning dressed in what I remembered as one of my sister’s favourite outfits brought on an acute attack of paranoia. I was convinced that people all around me were staring at me, and I guess my furtive behaviour only helped to make my concerns come true. I felt very self conscious in the physics test, but the reading I’d done over the weekend had been worthwhile and I felt I acquitted myself pretty well.

I met up with Jen for lunch and in an urgent whisper asked how on earth girls managed to act normal wearing skirts that were so short that they left almost nothing to the imagination. I described what I was wearing and she had a quiet fit of the giggles.

“It’s not funny,” I insisted, “I feel totally exposed and it feels like everyone’s staring at me.”

“Well if they are it's only because you’re acting so weird. Everyone except you sees only a guy wearing jeans and a tee-shirt. The smooth arms might be attracting a bit of attention, but I wouldn’t worry about that too much. It’s just something new which will become very ordinary after a few days.

“If it’s any help at all, I like it.” She reached out a hand and stroked my bare smooth arm. It felt good and I started to calm down with her reassurances.

The afternoon went better with just a single comment from one of the lecturers who enquired about my rather abrupt hair loss. I responded with the prearranged response about my girlfriend preferring smooth skin and most of the odd looks I’d been getting all day seemed to subside after that. I still felt exposed in the short dress, but by the time my last lecture ended I was beginning to enjoy myself again.

The rest of the week was fairly uneventful, except that I spent it seemingly dressed in a wide variety women’s clothes. Jenny spent as much time as she could round mine, saying it was easier to come to me as a girl could get a pretty trashy reputation very quickly if a guy spent too much time in her room.

She preferred wearing jeans she told me, but out of a sense of solidarity she started wearing skirts and dresses to help me feel more at ease. It took me a day or so to notice, but pretty soon I found myself wearing the same things she did, only a day later.

What twigged it was the Thursday evening. A friend of hers who was studying performing arts had invited her and a plus one to a play she and some of her friends were putting on at the Union. Jen turned up to my room wearing a delightful little black dress with sequinned jacket. I was still dressed in my scruffs from the day, and not wanting to show her up I changed quickly into my Sunday clothes. The instant I finished buttoning up my shirt, I found myself wearing the same outfit as her, right down to the strappy sandals, sequinned jacket and matching purse.

As we walked to the bus stop I brought it up.

“It seems that I’ve been wearing your clothes a lot recently.”

She gave me a startled look. “What do you mean?”

“It may not be happening every time, but every time we meet up, the next time I get changed, as long as it’s not night clothes, I seem to end up wearing what you were wearing at our last meeting. I hadn’t noticed it before, but this evening as soon as I changed I found myself wearing the same LBD you have on at the moment.”

“I thought you were walking a bit funny. These heels are a bit high if you’re not used to them.”

“Yes there is that, but do you think there’s any significance?”

“I should probably take it as a compliment,” she replied thoughtfully.

“What do you mean?”

“Mysterio’s suggestion to you was that you should believe yourself to be wearing the most beautiful women’s clothing you could imagine. Pretty much everything you’ve found yourself wearing seems to be either something you remember finding attractive that one of your female friends or relatives was wearing, or something that caught your eye in a clothes catalogue.

“You probably didn’t start of by matching me because I was wearing jeans or trousers most of the time and they probably don’t strike you as girly enough, but now that I’m wearing dresses all the time, you’re finding them beautiful as much because it’s me that’s wearing them as anything else. Either that or you have the same taste in girl clothes as I do.”

“Hmm,” I thought. It made sense.

The play was excellent, and all the better for the company. My smooth skin made wearing the dress something new and delightful all over again. This trance didn’t seem to be lessening, but Jen didn’t seem at all freaked out by it and, apart from a vague nagging sense of wrongness in the back of my mind, I had started to enjoy the sensual feel and sheer beauty of the clothing my mind insisted I was wearing, so for a while I settled into the novelty and pleasure of the experience.

Easter came and we headed off home for a few weeks rest. Jen and I lived in different parts of the country so promising frequent emails, texts and phone calls, we caught separate trains and headed for opposite corners of the country.

Somehow I had managed to associate the girly clothes with life at university. I mean I had been put in a trance at uni, and the last few weeks of looking and feeling dressed in girl clothes had all happened at university. Heading home seemed to be a break from normal daily life — no study, no Jen, no Dave, none of the familiar university inputs — so somehow I had expected that I would turn up at home wearing trousers again.

My mind seemed to have different ideas though. When I dressed that morning the usual momentary break in perception occurred and I found myself wearing a short, white, sleeveless summer dress with overlapping tiers of sheer fabric over a plain silky white slip. It was short, coming down to mid thigh, but I remembered being totally captivated by it when I had seen a young woman wearing it in town the previous day.

I'd taken a short diversion into town to buy a present for Jen when I saw her. Acting on impulse and remembering what Jenny had said about my possibly having the same taste in women’s clothes as her, I had approached the young woman and asked her where she had bought it as I thought it would make a great present, assuming it wasn’t too expensive. The woman had thought it a highly romantic notion and, since she worked in the shop that sold it, she offered me her staff discount on the dress. Intimate conversations about women’s clothes with Jen over the previous weeks had given me a pretty good idea on her various measurements and so, even though it ended up being quite a bit more than I had planned on spending, I bought the dress.

The look on Jen’s face when she opened the box made the painful memory of parting with so much cash at one time fade into insignificance. She had made some comment about letting me borrow it sometime if I liked. I still couldn’t get over how accepting she was of my peculiarity.

Anyway, as it happened I didn’t need to borrow it because here I was about to head back to my prudish and unaccepting parents wearing one of the most girly pieces of clothing in existence.

I climbed onto the train willing my perception to shift back to the shirt and chinos I had put on that morning, but it wasn’t about to start cooperating. The closer I approached my home, the more panicky I became, and half an hour out from arriving I found myself shut in the toilet on train dialling Jen’s mobile number.

“Hey girlfriend,” I said, “I kind of need you right now.”

“Not easy,” she said, “given that we’re probably a couple of hundred miles apart and heading away from each other at high speed even as we speak.”

“Just hearing your voice is helping. I need you to tell me everything’s going to be alright.”

“Why what’s up?”

“Well you know that dress I bought you yesterday?”

“Yes it’s lovely. I want to wear it to a party tonight, but I’m afraid it will draw too much attention. I want to be with you when I wear it for the first time.”

“You can wear it to your party, I don’t mind. I mean it seems only fair that you should get to enjoy it sometime soon given that I’m wearing one exactly like it right now.”

“Oh!”

“I can’t meet my parents looking like this Jen, I've told you how they are!”

“Richard, you know that’s not what they’re going to see. You dressed in your chinos and a white shirt this morning, remember? You looked very smart and that’s exactly what they’re going to see.”

“But it’s not what I’ll see! And the last time I stood in front of my parents dressed anything like I am now they went totally off the wall.”

“They’re not going to this time love. All they will see is their son back from university, dressed in smart, very masculine clothing.”

“And when they give me that look that seems to be asking if I’m still a little pervert, how am I going to respond to that? I mean from my point of view I’ll be standing in front of them showing more leg than they ever let my sister get away with. I won’t be able to hold it together.”

“Richard, remember you are not doing anything wrong. You are not wearing a dress, not really, and your parent’s can’t object to the way you are dressed. What’s more what you see and feel isn’t your fault either. You know and I know that if you had the choice you would end this thing if you could, and the way you see yourself right now is out of your control.

“Just tell yourself that you are not doing anything wrong and that anything that seems wrong is beyond your ability to change. You will be fine.”

The conversation went on like that for most of the last 30 minutes until the train started to slow. By then I felt better and I thanked Jen for helping. I collected my bags and stepped off the train to find Dad waiting for me. The haunted look was still in his eyes, but I put on my best face and strode up to him — not quite as easy as it sounds even though the heels on the sandals I seemed to be wearing were quite low — and shook his hand.