“Don’t be such a wimp.”

I tried to return her glare, but found it hard to meet her eyes.

“I can’t help it. I am a wimp….and besides, you caught me at a weak moment.”

“You agreed,” she snarled. “Don’t tell me now that you’re not man enough to do this. I’ve spent a lot of money….not to mention my time… getting everything ready for this, and you’re going if I have to drag you there in chains.”

“But I’ll look stupid,” I whined weakly.

“No you won’t. That’s one of the reasons I’ve put so much effort into this. Yes, three quarters of the blokes will look stupid and most of them will treat it as a big joke, so if you’re feeling fragile you can pretend it’s a joke too, but you’re going to look good whether you like it or not.”

She softened a little and came over and put her arms around my neck and looked into my eyes with that special way she had which always made my knees go weak.

“Look, Jimmy, I’m not trying to make you look a fool. I guarantee you will be a big hit. You’re slim and tall and have nice features and clear skin. I’ve got you a dead sexy outfit and when you’re made-up and wigged they’ll all be wondering if you’re a real girl trying to pull a fast one. Tell you what. We’ll have a practice run tomorrow and if you really don’t want to do it we’ll call the whole thing off, OK? Of course, I’ll never speak to you again.” Her last words were quiet and dead serious.

She can wind me round her little finger, and, in fact I was dying to do it but was afraid of looking too eager. I didn’t want her to think I was some kind of gay. I’m not gay but the thought of going out dressed as a girl really turned me on, in fact more than that; it wasn’t just being dressed as a girl but being thought a girl and being seen as a girl, and feeling like a girl, even if it was only an illusion.

I had had a dream for years that I was some kind of fish out of water….that nature had really intended me to be a girl but somewhere along the line the chromosomes or genes or whatever had got scrambled so that I came out as a boy. I had never done anything about it, putting it into the category of hopeless wishes that would never be horses. Just get on with your life, Jimmy.

Anyway, some weeks before, she had suggested, very forcefully suggested, that we should go to the annual Tarts and Vicars Ball, which is an event where the men go dressed as girls and vice versa and everyone has a glorious booze-up and a competition to choose a “King” and “Queen”. Naturally it’s very popular with uni students and that ilk. I had been distracted at the time and agreed, thinking it was one of her many projects and enthusiasms which would likely come to nothing.

However, this time it had not come to nothing, and when Sylvia really puts her mind to something she becomes a force of nature and god help anyone or anything that gets in her way. So I wasn’t about to become another piece of discarded flotsam or jetsam left in her wake. Besides, despite my misgivings I love her to bits and she really does provide my missing backbone.

Yes, I am a wimp. I admit it. She seems to love me and I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because she CAN dominate me. She says it’s because I’m sweet and gentle and not a Neanderthal. I don’t know about the first two but the third qualification is definitely true. On my side I was mesmerised by her beauty and personality from the instant we met.

I was just seventeen at the time and recently out of school, standing in the pouring rain at a bus-stop holding an umbrella. She came running to the bus-queue trying to protect her hair by holding her handbag over it. It seemed to be the polite thing to do to offer to share my umbrella with her. There was no thought of romance in my mind. Even in her bedraggled state it was obvious to me that she was way out of my league as well as being at least a few years older than me. I found out later it was six…years that is.

Anyway, she thanked me profusely and I said it was my pleasure and then we chatted about the inclement weather and how she had left home not expecting the sudden change. Then the bus came and it turned out we were catching the same one. I offered to give her my umbrella to get her home when she got off and she said thanks but she couldn’t possibly. So when her stop came I took an uncharacteristically bold step for me and said, “What a coincidence, this is my stop too and I will walk you home,” and so I did.

She hung on to my arm and almost snuggled up to me all the way down the street, but I assumed that this was just to take advantage of maximum cover from our shared umbrella.

We arrived at her flat and I sheltered her while she rooted out her keys from the bottom of her bag and unlocked her door.

She turned and looked at me and my heart did a couple of somersaults. All I was expecting was a thank you and a goodbye.

“Well, come on in,” she said. “You deserve at least a cup of coffee and a chance to dry out a bit.”

Truth to tell, even with the cover provided by the brolly, the bottom half of me was pretty damp and I wanted to stay with her as long as I could. We entered a small hallway and we both shrugged out of our wet coats and hung them on a coat-tree and I deposited the umbrella in a rack where it began to drip on the parquet floor. She led us into a sitting room where she unceremoniously kicked off her shoes, pulled up her skirt as if I wasn’t there and stripped off her stockings with a sigh.

Turning and looking at me she said, ”Don’t just stand there. Take off your shoes and socks. Your pants look like they could do with a good dry too. Take ‘em off while I go and get some towels.”

She left the room while I did as I was told and stood there in my bare feet and underpants. Just for once I blessed my mum’s insistence that my underwear should always be clean.

“You never know when you might have an accident and end up in hospital,” She used to say.

The girl…..I didn’t even know her name…. came back in wearing a dressing gown, her hair in a towel turban and carrying several towels. She tossed a couple at me and giggled, presumably at me standing there wearing a jacket, shirt and underpants.

“You’re welcome to take off your jacket. I’m not insisting on formality. Give me your socks and trousers and I’ll put them to dry in the kitchen”

I’m sure I blushed, but I did what I was told and rubbed at my legs with a towel while she went out of the room again. She came back in a couple of minutes later and gave me an exasperated look.

“Do I have to tell you it’s OK to sit down?” she asked. “For Crissake sit down and make yourself comfortable, Sir Walter Raleigh. I know that’s not quite right, ‘cos he stopped the Queen from getting her feet wet, but the thought was there. I’m Sylvia by the way. Who’re you?”

“Jimmy.”

“Well, Jimmy. Pleased to meet you. From your accent you’re not Glaswegian. I guess you’re a local and I just got here a few days ago from London. Is the weather always like this? I thought this was supposed to be sunshine central.”

“Sorry. They tell lies to bring in gullible tourists. It rains here most weekdays and at weekends it brightens up and only drizzles.”

She laughed. “I like you, Jimmy. Seriously, thanks for saving me. I would have got really soaked. Now sit there and relax while I make some coffee. I’m afraid it’s only instant; I’m not properly organised yet. How do you take it?”

“Just a little milk and two sugars, please. Can I help with anything?”

No. It’s OK. Instant coffee I can manage. Anything more complicated and you’d probably have to do it yourself.”

When she returned bearing two mugs of coffee she sat down next to me on the sofa and to my amazement started telling me her life story. Born in London…Kensington….still got a place there. Only child; her father was a fairly big wheel in the Army, a colonel in charge of certain operations against the IRA, and he was killed by a car-bomb in the early 1990s in retaliation for some of the things he had supposedly organised. She had hardly known him. She loved her mother who was a strong woman who had brought her up on her own. Ordinary primary school just around the corner in South Ken; High school at Cheltenham Ladies College and then a brief period at the London School of Economics (which told me she was very bright just getting in) until she had foolishly married and was soon divorced.

“My mum told me not to, said I was too young, but of course I didn’t listen. He was only after my body, and anyone else’s he could get, including my best friend’s, the cow. So that didn’t last long…..only a year. And then my mum got cancer and in a few months she was gone. It was a terrible time. Towards the end I couldn’t even look after her and she had to go into a hospice. One of the reasons I am here is to leave the memories behind.”

She shed a few tears at that point and I wanted to comfort her but wasn’t quite game, so I just made sympathetic noises.

It turned out she was seriously wealthy. She had known they were well-off but had got quite a shock when her mum’s will was read. The amount was millions, not hundreds of thousands. So she definitely didn’t need to work but she was studying archaeology at our local university; not ancient bones but medieval fashion like you see in the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Well, I thought, that lets me out. Apart from her being out of my league in looks and poise I’m probably worth ten quid if I’m lucky.

Our coffee had long been drunk and I figured I had better go, so I thanked her and asked for my clothes back. They surely would be dry enough by now.

“Oh no you don’t. I’m not giving you your pants back until you tell me your story. Turnabout is only fair play. I’ll get more coffee. You stay put.”

When she came back with the mugs refilled I was still wondering what to tell her. My life was very mundane. Anyhow, I cleared my throat and started.

Born in this town, also an only child, and lived here all my life, although I really wanted to get out. My dad was a merchant seaman, not dumb; he made first mate, until my mum demanded that he give it up. He was gradually getting squeezed out by sailors from third-world countries who cost less anyway. So he tried various jobs until he wound up caretaking for a block of flats. My mum is a housewife. I went to the local primary school and then the town Grammar school but quit a few months ago in a fit of teenage umbrage, feeling I was still being treated as a child. At least I got my O-Levels, ten of them. It wasn’t as if I wasn’t clever enough. My personality just seemed to cause me problems.

I had applied for jobs in the design offices of various aero-space companies because that was where I wanted to be, but without success. The industry was contracting, not hiring, so I was currently working part-time in a coffee shop….basically waiting tables until I could find something more rewarding.

And then somehow I found it was all coming out….things I had never meant to mention….few friends at school or now…..somehow not fitting in. Trying to stand up to bullies who thought they could push me around because I was skinny and not much good at sports and maybe too clever by half and somehow I was always the one who got blamed for the fights while they stood aside and laughed while I got punished. The only thing I didn’t mention was my feeling that I should have been a girl.

I ended up apologising for subjecting her to my misery and asking if I could go now. Please give me back my clothes. Instead of which she folded me in her arms, cuddled me and stroked my hair while I broke down and cried on her shoulder, and when I dried up she said……

“We’re both lonely, aren’t we? Can I see you again, Jimmy? Will you be my friend please?”

“Why would you want to be friends with me? You’re rich and beautiful and I’m a loser.”

“That’s why. You just called me beautiful and you brought me home under your umbrella, not expecting anything for yourself and not knowing anything about me. Tell me….if you hadn’t thought I was beautiful would you still have shared your umbrella with me?”

“Yes, of course. It was the right thing to do. I couldn’t have let a girl get soaked just because she wasn’t pretty.”

“See. That’s why I want you to be my friend. When can I see you again?”

“Whenever you want to. How about tomorrow?”

“Pick me up here at three o’clock, then?”

“OK.”

“You lied, didn’t you?”

“What do you mean?”

“It wasn’t your stop at all, was it?”

I blushed.

That’s how a small kindness wound up getting me a date with Sylvia, a girl way beyond my dreams. Then more dates, and then me moving in with her, because she told it true that she was hopeless at actually looking after herself. Every time I went to her place it was a pigsty and I always ended up cleaning it up for her. All her fine education and her wealth hadn’t made her into a good housekeeper or a good cook, while my frugal upbringing had done the opposite. Somewhere along the line I think…I hope… she fell in love with me or maybe it was just my housekeeping. I had been in love with her since she came under my umbrella.

Whatever, the end result was that I moved in with her and looked after the flat and cooked and washed for her. She didn’t insult me by paying me but gave me a credit card to look after all the expenses including my personal needs.

So when she said she’d never speak to me again if I didn’t go along with her plans for the ball I really had no choice, even if I didn’t really believe she was serious I wasn’t going to take the chance.

I smiled meekly and weakly and said “OK, let’s see how I look.”

“So strip, baby. It’s shower time.”

I did as I was told. I could hardly get coy about stripping in front of her when we went to bed naked every night except for the bad time of the month.

I’d be the first to admit that I’m not a big hairy macho type with ginormous muscles. In fact she says she loves me because I’m not. We’re actually about the same size except you could play the xylophone on my ribs and she has a cover of what they call subcutaneous fat. It’s a lovely cover and gives me goose-pimples when I rub my hands over it. It’s sort of like velvet. Don’t even mention her breasts.

If I was put into one of those camps that the Serbs used for ethnic cleansing I’d look like a malnutrition victim before I started. Sorry, I can’t help being skinny. It’s in my genes. I’m eighteen years old and I weigh 133 pounds and stand 5 ft 10 inches. If you called me wiry you would be being very kind.

She towed me to the bathroom and slathered my naked body with green goo and left me standing shivering while she got the shower going to her satisfaction. Then she gave me my razor and pushed me into the spray.

“Wash off all the gunk and give your face a good shave while you’re in there. When you’ve done that shampoo and condition your hair and use my body lotion all over.”

What body hair I had clogged the drain for a short time but eventually disappeared. Shaving my face didn’t take long. My beard was pretty sparse and I normally shaved about once every five or six days. Shampooing and conditioning was routine since I had moved in with her. Applying her body lotion was almost beyond erotic on my hairless body and my little man stood up as I finished. When I got out she was laughing.

She grabbed the horizontal protuberance and gave it a sensuous massage with a small towel which soon produced the inevitable reaction and I shuddered to a climax and the tool dropped to the vertical.

“There,” she said, grinning. “That would have spoiled the fall of your dress, so I fixed it.”

I didn’t complain as she helped me to rub the rest of me dry and turbaned my hair. It’s amazing how different you feel when your body is all soft and smooth. Every whisper of air seems to caress you as it passes over you. Any objection I had disappeared right then.

“Right. I’ve got everything ready so just do as you’re told. Lie down.”

Completely submissive I laid on the bed. There was no point in fighting now. I had agreed to what was to come. First was a pair of cold chicken fillets carefully aligned on my chest and then glued into place. They warmed up surprisingly quickly. Then there was a strange shaped artefact into which she inserted my penis, glueing the front half to my groin and pulling the tail end through to my bum and glueing that into position at the back. She held the device down for a couple of minutes to make sure my soldier didn’t stand up again, which it was trying hard to do.

“All right, let’s see how that looks so far. Stand up and let’s have a look.”

I stood and saw myself in the full-length mirror in the bedroom. No male organs were visible, just a very realistic vagina and a nice pair of boobs.

“Of course, you’ll have to sit down to pee until it comes off, and you should try to think pure thoughts so you don’t strain anything down there.” And she laughed like a drain.

“I’m sorry. It’s just that you’re starting to look like one of those size-zero models. Now lie down again, face down this time.”

More chicken fillets, but thinner and wider, were applied to my bum, and then she got me to lie first on one side and then the other while she applied more shaping pads to my hips.

“Where do you get all this stuff?” I asked.

“The internet is a wonderful place. You’d be amazed at what you can get with a little research.”

“I’m amazed already.” I said as she had me stand and observe myself in the mirror. My body had become a woman’s body; hips and bum, breasts and groin….all just with a few pieces of silicone and some adhesive. I felt marvellous but tried to maintain my cool.

“How long does this stuff stay on?”

“The instructions for the adhesive say it will last at least three weeks, although it can be removed with some difficulty and a special solvent after about two weeks. I didn’t get the solvent though as I thought you would need to get comfortable with being a girl.”

“Wh-a-a-t? You mean I’m stuck like this for three weeks. The Ball’s in two weeks, so you’re telling me I’m stuck with being a girl until then?”

“What’s wrong with that? You’ll need the practice. You have to learn as much as you can about being a girl before the Ball. I don’t want you looking like a cowgirl without her horse. I want you poised and elegant and feminine. Anyway, it’s mainly you and me, babe, and you’ll be used to it by then. Nobody will even know. Trust me. Half the world lives like that all the time.”

“But how will I get the shopping and things?”

“You’ll go to the grocers and the supermarket and the butcher just like you normally do, but dressed as a girl. I bet you’ll be surprised at how much better the service is.”

“If that’s the case why don’t you do it instead of me?”

“Because you’re much better at it than I am, even as a man.”

I didn’t have a comeback for that.

“You really are a sneaky cow. You’ve tricked me into being a girl for two weeks when I thought we were just trying on the costume. I should…..”

She was doubled over. “Should what? Right now you’re stark naked and you can’t get your dick up. So you can’t even fuck me….although I’m getting quite turned on seeing my Jimmy as a female. I’ll have to think of some things for two girls to do in bed, because I’m going to be quite horny over the next fortnight.”

I was left speechless…..and really I was delighted. When somebody forces you into a situation which you can’t control, and you secretly want, then there is no guilt, and I had a whole two weeks before the Ball. Then I might feel terror, but not yet. She didn’t know that I wanted this so I could play the injured party all the time and flounce and pout and be a girl to my heart’s content.

“Now put this on.” She held out one of her dressing gowns so that I could slip my arms into the sleeves.

“Sit down and give me your feet. I won’t give you a full pedicure today, just some nail polish.”

She carefully painted my toenails a brilliant vermilion and wadded bits of cotton-wool between my toes so that I couldn’t smudge them.

“Fingers. Hold your hand out and keep it steady.”

I watched fascinated as my fingernails were lightly shaped and coated with vermilion varnish. I felt more feminine by the moment as they changed colour.

“Don’t touch anything and wiggle them around for five minutes,” she instructed me when she had finished. So I delicately flapped my newly painted fingers.

“Now, I’ll do your face and hair. In two weeks I’ll expect you to be able to do this yourself except I will supervise on the day of the Ball because I want you to look superb. I’ll show you how to do it over the next couple of days so you can do it yourself.”

“First I’m going to fix your wig and then I’m going to do your make-up and then we’ll see about getting you dressed. I promise you, you are going to be amazing, darling. No whingeing now; some of this may hurt a little, but there’s no gain without pain.”

No vampire ever looked more eager for blood than she did at the prospect of feminising me.

As promised, first she fixed a wig in place by glueing it to my forehead and temples after she had brushed my own hair into a kind of bun at the back of my head and tucked it under the hairpiece. Then she started on my face. I almost cried as hairs from my eyebrows were viciously pulled out until she was satisfied that the shape of my brows was acceptable. Then she started on me with powders and brushes and sticks and pencils and finally a lipstick before brushing my artificial hair into its final shape.

She looked at her finished work and her expression was a strange mixture of satisfaction, pride and horror.

“What have I done?” she breathed almost inaudibly. Unable to see the results I wondered what she meant.

Whatever it was, the moment passed and she waved at the collection of garments laid out on the bed.

“ Time to get dressed. First, suspender belt. You may think that’s odd but you have to fasten your stockings first and then put on your panties so that you can go to the loo without having to take off your stockings.”

I immediately saw the logic in that as she showed me how to put on the suspender belt and then fasten the stockings, first showing me how to roll them up my legs, after which we slid up the panties. God, I felt sexy. The stockings covered my legs but left them feeling as if they were bare, so that every waft of breeze would caress my skin. I shivered in anticipation.

“Bra. The easiest way is to put it on backwards, fasten it at the front, then pull it round to the correct position, pull the straps over your shoulders and then lean way forwards and jiggle your boobs into the right position. That’s a good girl. You got it first time. This particular bra is designed to push up your breasts to make you sexier.”

As I looked down at my breasts I could see it was doing exactly what it was meant to do and I felt a real thrill. I wished my breasts were real as she dabbed on some make-up which made the lines joining them to my skin disappear.

She held up a piece of fabric with laces.

“”This is a waist-cincher. It’ll pull you in to the right shape for your costume.” And she proceeded to wrap it around me and tighten it until I felt I was almost cut in half.

“You’re joking, aren’t you,” I wheezed. “Wasn’t I thin enough already?”

“No. Shut up. You’ll thank me for it by the time we go to the Ball. Your waist will be at least three inches smaller and you’ll be exactly the right shape.”

Then she held up my dress. It was black with white lace trimming on the neckline and sleeves and around the hem of the skirt. It also had built-in white petticoats in a slightly stiffer material. She held it low.

“Step into this,” she said, holding it open.

I did as bid and she pulled it up and over my arms, tugging a little to settle it and then zipped it up tight at the back. It had a hard time going over my waist and I knew what she meant about the waist-cincher; I would have to lose a few inches to make it fit me perfectly. As I moved I felt for the first time the swish of the petticoats against my nylons. The sleeves were long with white cuffs and the neckline swooped down at the front to barely cover my bra. The bodice was tight to the waist and then flared out over my hips, supported by the petticoats and ending six inches above my knees. Yes, you guessed it. It was a classic French Maid costume, just like you see in the stage and film farces.

“Now for the piece de resistance or maybe that should be pieces,” she said, holding out a pair of black patent high heels. “Put these on. I hope they fit.”

She helped me stand as I slipped each foot into a shoe and stood a little wobbly, but they did fit. They felt great….my dreams come true.

Sylvia finally turned me towards the full-length mirror and I saw myself for the first time. I’ll say that again. I saw MYSELF for the first time. Not Jimmy….ME!. In that instant my world changed

I gasped as I looked at myself. Everything I saw in the mirror screamed “GIRL”. I was not what you would call gorgeous or beautiful, but pretty wouldn’t be a stretch of the imagination.

I knew in that instant that the genie was out of the bottle and was not going back in. How to describe the mixture of elation and joy that I felt at that instant. I had expected terror, shock, embarrassment and I don’t know what, but it just didn’t happen. Later, maybe. I would have fainted from ecstasy if Sylvia’s hand had not been on my arm. My first thought was that for the first time in my entire life I loved myself and my second was “Will Sylvia still love me like this?”

Sylvia was staring at my reflection just as hard as I was. Our eyes met in the mirror.

“Oh my god!” She said.

I pirouetted to get a view of myself from as many angles as I could. The girl in high heels with the gorgeous nylon-clad legs and the sexy petticoated skirt did the same. Her breasts amply filled her bra and were on display above the plunging neckline of her lacy top. I thought just how much having breasts suited her. Her black hair hung to just below her chin and her perfectly made-up face completed the image of a sexy French maid. It was not just an image. I was the perfect French maid and felt exactly as I thought a maid should.

“I hope you still love me,” I said, “Because you just changed the world for me. I’m not Jimmy any more. I think you can see that.”

“Oh my god. What have I done?”

“You’ve created a monster of sorts Madame Frankenstein. Are you proud of your work?”

“Oh my god!”

“Tell me, what did you do with my lips? They’re twice their normal size.”

She recovered herself enough to answer me.

“It’s called lip plumper. It makes them swell up before you put on lipstick. Oh my god.”

“I love them. So, when are you going to give me lessons on how to be a girl in the next two weeks?”

“Oh my god!”