"You're slender everywhere you need to be, and two places you shouldn't be," Mom said.

Sis explained camel-toe to me before she left for school. Gross. I think it took most of fifteen minutes for me to stop blushing. I would have a worse problem if something showed through my panties than imaginary desert ungulates, but the bike shorts took care of that. The front of my capris stayed completely flat.

"We need to do something about that flat butt, though," said Mom, watching me walk away.

"What? Why?" I protested, turning around. Someone being critical of the shape of my butt was not an entirely new thing, but the usual remark from coaches and guys at school was that mine was fat, not flat.

"You're slender everywhere you need to be, and two places you shouldn't be," she said.

"Huh?"

"We've got the top taken care of with a padded bra. We need to get you a padded panty, or better, a padded girdle, so you don't need those bike shorts." Mom beamed at me.

I shook my head. "No," I insisted, but she must not have been listening because the first place we went later that morning was a lingerie shop. I almost panicked as she steered me inside the temple to femininity.

"They'll just throw me out, you know," I said for maybe the fourth time, looking around nervously for the Amazon guards.

"Stop worrying," Mom reassured me. "You're a girl. You've got every right to be here."

"Ack!" I mentioned.

The colors and textures in the place were amazing, and I was transfixed just inside the door by a mannikin (femmikin?) wearing a bra and panty set that was just the golden color of the highlights in my hair. How had they known I would be coming here today?

"You like that?" Mom asked.

I must have nodded because she moved us both closer and examined the items. The satiny shimmer of the panties and the panels in the cups changed with the angle of viewing in an elegant way. It reminded me of the effects in some anime I had watched. And the lace trim on both pieces had the delicacy of the fine hairs that grow at your temples and down your neck.

"No one can accuse you of having cheap taste, Samantha," Mom commented, showing me the price tag.

I gasped. "For underwear that no one is going to see?"

A saleslady had suddenly appeared. She chuckled. "Well, maybe that special someone," she suggested.

"Careful," Mom warned. "She's just fourteen."

"Oh," said Rita (it was on her nametag), "has someone suddenly outgrown being a tomboy?"

"Something like that," Mom agreed. "She wants to get some shapewear to define her new look."

Shapewear? They were just making words up. But I had a different question. "The color of this set," I asked, "is it going to look as good on someone as it does on this black mannikin?"

"Would you like to try it on, sweetie?" Rita offered.

"Uh." Put up or shut up. "Yes, please," I said, blushing. What? I mean, What!!? Well, it was obvious Mom and Dad's project was affecting my brain.

The saleslady explained some rules. "You can only try on the panties over something, but you can try on this bra or some other one. Do you know your size?

I did! "Twenty-eight-A," I said.

"Mm, hmm," Rita murmured. "I'll make up some sets for you to take into a booth."

Mom and I looked at a lot more stuff and added things to the pile on the counter by the booths. The price of the lingerie set that had attracted my attention coming in had inspired me with a plan. If I could make it too expensive to continue this insanity, I could go back to being just a boy with long hair instead of a fake girl.

Doing this required me to show some enthusiasm, so I cooed and giggled over the choice of cherry red satin panties ($28) and lacy lavender garter belts ($39). Those last were beautiful but seriously, $39 for something to hold your socks up?

Mom may have twigged to what I was doing because she started putting some of the expensive stuff back, with reasons. "Too grown up," or, "Not this time," or just, "No, Sam."

And that was funny, too, so I kept giggling.

But the moment arrived to go into the dressing room and try stuff on. In I went with three bras and two pair of padded panties. Rita had also supplied little wiggly insert thingies to fill out the bra cups better than just tiny cloth pillows. For some reason, these were named after a fast-food chicken place.

Mom followed me in, and I decided not to object to that because my embarrass-o-meter was already broken. But right away, I found something to protest. "This is not a 28A," I pointed out, holding up the first bra.

"A 28B," she agreed, "but that brand runs small."

I already had my top off and was removing the plain white training bra I'd already been wearing. "Mom!" I whined, just for effect.

"Don't be so dramatic," she ordered me, adding in a whisper, "How in the world have you got away with pretending to be a boy for so many years?"

"I—what?" That sort of derailed me. I whispered back. "What's that supposed to mean?" in exasperation. I may have gestured.

Mom frowned at me like she was really more amused than annoyed. "Just try the stuff on," she ordered.

I did, and it fit, I suppose. I mean, the bras wouldn't fit without the wiggly padding, and the panty girdles were too tight, but they were supposed to be.

"Keep that set on," she ordered me when I had donned the cherry red panties and bra. "We'll take the tags off, and you can wear them out."

"But I like the gold bra better," I whined, not sure if I were play-acting at all.

"We'll get that set too, and the inserts, leave them in."

I gasped. This was turning into an expensive shopping trip already. The pair of chicken fillers cost as much as one of the nice bras.

After we sorted things with the saleslady, she suggested that I get some nice hose to wear with my beautiful undies. I couldn't do anything but blush.

"Pantyhose, stay-ups, or stockings?" Rita asked.

I had no idea. Of course.

Pantyhose must be the default option because that's what we ended up with. "We'll get cheap ones somewhere else while you learn how to take care of your hose," Mom explained, adding only one pair of nice ones to our loot.

I shrugged, still puzzled about how I felt about all of this girliness. I kept blushing, but I wasn't freaking out about it, and in some ways, I seemed to be enjoying myself.

"Earrings," Mom said when we emerged from the lingerie shop.

I saw the jewelry kiosk she was looking at and clapped my hands over my ears. "No, please, no," I begged.

"Samantha, every girl in your class has pierced ears, I'll bet," she pointed out.

I couldn't think of an exception, and lots of guys had pierced ears, too. So I just shook my head.

"They'll look nice, peeking out of your hair and making your new curls look even better," she continued.

"No fair," I complained. Honestly, I had thought about getting earrings before, but something more like black studs, no jeweled ponies or pearls.

"Just think," Mom suggested, "if you wore pearls in your ears, how nice a pearl diadem would look in your hair."

"Argh!" I mentioned again.

We stopped in front of the kiosk, and I looked at all the colorful stuff. I know I'm a sucker because I said to her, "Lie to me, tell me it won't hurt."

She didn't even hesitate.