Connie

My name is Connie, which is short for Consuelo Sulllivan. I know, you don’t have to tell me that Consuelo Sullivan is a pretty weird name, but I can’t help it that my mother’s best friend for about a million years was a woman named Consuelo Dias or that my mother (whose name was Mary Dunleavy) was much more argumentative than my father, Mickey Sullivan. So 27 years ago, it became Consuelo Mary Sullivan. My mother died when I was about 6 and I remember her, but not very well. My father was a nice enough guy, but he didn’t understand his daughters all that well and his response to not understanding them was to ignore them as much as possible. So I grew up with a father I saw once in a while, his mother, his three sisters, my mother’s mother, my two sisters and Consuelo Dias. Mostly though, I grew up on my own.

When it was time to go to college, I wanted to go as far away as I could and to go to a big city and I wound up in Boston. I got an apartment with about a half-dozen roommates and it wasn’t long before I was Ms. Punkette. I got grades that were just about as good as I had to. When I was notified that I was going to graduate, I cleaned up my act for a couple of weeks, bought a dress and invited my father to my graduation ceremony. To my absolute amazement, he accepted. He came, we went out to dinner afterwards and when he got into a cab to go back to the airport, that was the last I ever saw of any member of my family.

For the next six years, I didn’t do much of anything worthwhile. I did some publicity for some rock bands (sang with a couple), worked in a pet store, was a bike messenger, a tour guide, a waitress in a diner, a waitress in a clam shack and a security guard. I must have passed out about 12 million flyers on street corners. The longest I ever held a single job was 7 months as a shipper/receiver in a bookstore. I never missed a rent payment, but I missed a lot of meals (I made up for it though, with lots and lots of Big Macs and Doritos).

So there I was, sitting by myself on Christmas Eve, watching TV and having my Christmas dinner of instant soup, BBQ Fritos and Bud Lite when I felt my life change. Of course the show I was watching was It’s a Wonderful Life, which I always thought was hokey as hell but watching It’s a Wonderful Life on Christmas Eve was as much a Christmas tradition as anything else I had. I was near the end of the show when all of Jimmy Stewart’s friends show up with money to help him out and the happy ending just oozes all over the screen and all of a sudden I felt absolutely, totally, miserable. I knew right then and there that this would never happen to me. I would always be sitting in my apartment (never a house, that would be impossible), sipping on instant soup watching It’s a Wonderful Life by myself every Christmas Eve from now on. I didn’t cry (I never cry) but I went to bed (alone of course) and when I got up the next morning I got dressed, took the subway downtown and spent the entire day just walking around the city thinking about how miserable I was.

By the time I got on the subway to get back home, I had decided that this had all got to go. I didn’t know what I was going to do, but it was going to be something different. And the first thing I had to do was to find a job that paid more than I was making now, which was $6 an hour for 20 hours a week. On the way to my apartment, I stopped in at an ATM and checked my balance - $461.37. God, I was pathetic.

Arthur

When I was 6 years old, my best friends were my next door neighbor, Lisa and another girl, Betty, who lived around the corner. We went to school together, played together all the time and just generally hung out together. We’d been friends since before we started going to school and it just seemed natural that we’d spend time together. One day while we were on the swings at the playground, I pushed Lisa higher and higher and then started saying something that I’d heard some of the other boys saying:

“I see England, I see France
“I see a little girl’s underpants.”

I giggled, but Lisa, after braking to a stop, asked my what was so funny about a little girl’s underpants. All I knew was that is was supposed to be funny, so I kept giggling but Lisa didn’t seem to think it was all that funny.

“So let me see your underpants,” she said.

Well, OK, I said to myself. So I unzipped my pants and pulled them down. “I don’t see anything funny about your underpants,” she said, and started swinging again, but this time not so high. When we got home, Lisa told Betty about the song I sang and how she saw my underpants and didn’t think they were very funny at all. Betty suggested that maybe it was just that it was girls underpants that were funny, so she went in the house and brought out a pair of hers that had little pictures of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast all over them. She handed them to me.

“What am I supposed to do with these?” I asked her.

“Put them on,” Betty said. “Then we’ll see what’s so funny about a little girl’s underpants.” Betty and Lisa were both giggling pretty hard by now. So I went behind the bushes beside the garage and took off my pants and my underpants and put on Betty’s underpants and then pulled my pants back on and went back to the girls.

“So let’s see ‘em,” Lisa said.

So I pulled down my pants just enough to show them and the girls both started laughing really hard. I didn’t know what was so funny, though, because I thought they felt really nice. Then Lisa said that it wasn’t fair that I was wearing pants because they couldn’t see my underpants when we were on the swings or were playing around. Then Betty in the house and got a dress for me to put on. I went behind the bushes again and put it on and then came back out and we played together for another hour or so before Betty’s mom called her in for supper. She looked at me funny when I knocked at the door a couple of minutes later to give Betty back her dress. I didn’t give her back the underpants because I couldn’t find mine and because I kind of liked them.

My mother didn’t say anything when I got undressed for bed that night and was wearing girl’s underpants. And I didn’t think anything about it when she started signing me up for afterschool activities. Soon I was playing soccer on Mondays and Wednesdays, piano on Thursdays and was in a book club that met every Tuesday at the library. That year I saw less and less of Lisa and Betty and I started making friends with some of the boys at school, I never met friends I liked as much as Lisa and Betty. And I never forgot that afternoon I wore Betty’s underpants and dress.

I don’t know whether I was genetically predisposed to be a crossdresser or that afternoon with Betty and Lisa set me off, but I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t fascinated by girl’s clothes. When I was 8, I was in a Christmas pageant as an elf and our teacher decided that we all had to wear red tights. Most of the boys were embarrassed and I pretended to be but I loved it. I can remember spending hours with the Sears catalog, not looking for toys but gazing at the underwear ads. When I was 11 I began raiding the dirty clothes hamper to try on my mother’s panties and it wasn’t long before I was trying on pantyhose, girdles, bras and eventually skirts and dresses. At that time my mom’s stuff was a little big but by the time I was 14 it was fitting pretty well and when I was 16 it was getting a little small.

The thing was, I just couldn’t get up enough courage to go into a store and buy something. Once or twice I steeled myself and marched right into a department store but I could not bring myself to actually tell a salesperson what I was doing. There was even one time when I grabbed a couple of pairs of panties and a nightgown in a discount department store (no salespeople to ask embarrassing questions!). When I approached the cash register and saw the teenage girls ringing and the customers waiting in line I panicked and dumped my stuff in a candy display and walked out of there as fast as I could.

I went away to a large state college in the middle of nowhere and tried as hard as I could to put this out of my mind. One night, long after most people had gone to bed, I was doing my laundry and I noticed that one of the dryers still had clothes in it. I peeked and it was a girl’s load! I made sure that nobody was looking, reached in, grabbed a pair of panties and stuffed them in my pocket. Eventually, I buried them with my own things and one day when I was in the dorm room by myself, tried them on. They were only a little too small but I felt like I was walking on air while wearing them. I stole a few more pair over the next few weeks and wore them as much as I could but a very close call one afternoon put an end to that real quick.

I graduated from college, moved to Boston, got a nice job playing with computers for a law firm and found my own apartment in a nice area. I told one girlfriend about my “interest” and she let me try on a couple of her things while we were making love but she was so much smaller than I was that it didn’t work and I looked and felt ridiculous. Another time I told a different girlfriend and almost immediately the frost machine kicked in and it became obvious that this was our last date.

After I’d been working with this company for a couple of years, I worked out a way for them to integrate this research database they’d been using with their own local network. This allowed the attorneys who were computer literate to save a tremendous amount of time on their research while allowing them to lay off a couple of clerical workers. I felt bad for the girls who were let go, but I got a $5,000 bonus, a raise and a new title out of it, so I didn’t feel bad for long.

The first thing I decided to do with my money was to pay off my credit card. The second thing was to buy a dress. And everything that went with it.

Connie

The first thing I had to do was get some clothes to do interviews. I didn’t own a single dress. I owned exactly one skirt and it was a shapeless India print that I wore on very hot days with a tank top. Everything else was jeans and sweats and T’s, with some leather & stud club wear. I washed the teal color out of my hair, removed the studs from my nose, looked for my neatest pair of jeans and my cleanest sweatshirt and headed off to the mall (gag!) to buy some clothes for interviews, whatever that meant.

It was like landing on a foreign planet.

I was in sort of a daze. I just wandered around for about a half-hour and then went into one of the department stores. I poked around the racks, wondering what people wore to job interviews. I saw some racks of middle-aged looking clothes and was pawing through them ($89.99 for a skirt!) when a saleswoman sidled up to me. “Can I help you find anything?” she asked?

I blushed, and then blurted out that I was looking for an outfit or two I could wear on a job interview. She smirked just a bit, and said “You might have more luck in the women’s department on the third floor. We only go up to size 12 here.”

I could have died. Not only was I badly dressed, now I was officially fat. I slunk out of there as inconspicuously as my grossly overweight and badly dressed body would let me and while I thought about going upstairs, I also thought that any store that was charging $89 for on skirt wasn’t the kind of store that wanted me as a customer. So I circled around the mall a couple of times and then went to the Burger King in the food court. Ordered a large chocolate milkshake and a large fries (it was too early for lunch, so I skipped the Whopper) and sat down to think. If I started with the $461.37 that I owned and then deducted the amount I would owe for rent in two weeks and added the amount I would earn at the convenience store where I worked nights, I figured that I could afford about $60 on an outfit if I limited myself to one meal a day.

So the department store wasn’t going to be where I started.

The sale rack at the fat lady shop (it was named Laura Brown’s Shop for Women) was where I started. I noticed that on the window it said “sizes 14 and up” and remembering what the bitch at the department store said, I figured this is where I belonged. This black woman with tits that went out to here and a butt that went out equally far in the other direction smiled at me and asked, “Can I help you find something?”

Man, this is what I was dreading. How can you not know the answer to this question? But I didn’t, so I swallowed hard and told her that I needed something to wear on a job interview but didn’t have a whole lot to spend.

“I know what that’s like, honey,” she said. “ Follow me,” and she waddled to the back of the store where the clearance items were kept. “We have a couple of things back here that could do you proud!” She riffled through the skirts on a these big circular racks and her hands landed on a bunch of khaki skirts that didn’t look too bad and then she asked me what size I was.

“Ummm, I’m not sure,” I mumbled, trying to be as nonchalant as possible. With that, she scooped up an armful (well, four) and said, “why don’t you try them on and see which one fits best.”

So I did and that’s how I found out I was a 16. As I was in the dressing room, trying to remember how to zip something that zipped on the side, my own personal salesperson was busy getting me a pale blue shirt and a skinny belt to give to me when I finally figured out which skirt I was going to buy. I accepted her stuff without a second thought (not that I even possessed a first thought at this point) and headed toward the register to pay for everything.

“Hold on a second, honey,” she said as she touched my elbow. “If you gon’ be wearing a skirt, you gon’ be needing something for your legs. You can’t wear socks with a skirt. You have something at home?” When it was obvious to her that I didn’t own a single pair of pantyhose, she reached for a package. When she saw my face begin to gag, she reached for a pair of knee-hi’s. “You can get away with these,” she said. “Don’t forget to shave, though,” and then she allowed me to go to the register.

The whole thing came to $64.96 and as I paid for everything, I figured that my shake and fries would have to be today’s dinner. As everything was being rung up, I saw a pad of job applications on the counter, so I filled it out and left it behind, paid for my interview uniform and headed home.

On the way out the door, my shopping bag caught on a security device attached to a velvet dress. As I swung my arm forward, the bag pulled the tag with it, until the rack was just about to topple over on to my back. As I turned around to see what was happening, the bag twisted the rack in the other direction and I kind of twisted with it to grab it and right it before it fell over. Except I slipped and fell flat on my butt, underneath the rack of velvet dresses that fell on top of my. When I tried to get up, I pushed the rack to the side and it caught the underside of a table full of sweaters, which when tipped all fell to the floor. I finally got up and began to try straightening everything up before anyone noticed, but my own personal salesperson and another woman in her 30s had reached the front of the store by that time. With their biggest, widest, most sincerest smiles, they told me not to worry and that everything was alright.

I hadn’t been that embarrassed since I wet my panties in the second grade. I went straight home with every intention of going to bed. It was 11:20 am.

Arthur

OK, I had decided to buy some clothes. So I jumped in my car drove to the mall, parked, took the elevator up the level where the stores began, stepped out of the elevator and froze. Solid. Like a statue.

What the hell and I doing, I asked myself. I was standing in a shopping mall with a flush credit card burning a hole in my pocket and visions that ranged from Madonna to Buffy the Vampire Slayer dancing in my head (my face on all of them of course) but no idea what to do next.

I suppose the thing to do was just to plunge ahead. So I did. I was closest to Macy’s, so I marched right in and there was the Intimate Apparel department staring me right in the face. What did I do? I charged right in!

And found myself in a veritable sea of panties. Row upon row of chrome stands with hundreds of panties hanging from them. White panties, black panties, leopard print panties, floral panties. Skimpy, lacy panties, big balloony panties. Nylon panties, cotton panties, silk panties, lycra panties. Sheer panties and opaque panties. Panties that cost 4/$10 and panties that cost $22.99. I was overwhelmed, so I did the logical thing. I froze solid again.

Until I heard some ask “Can I help you with something?” A girl who couldn’t have been a day over 17 was smiling at me. I must have blushed as red as the panties one rack over, two racks back, second tier on the left.

“Uhh, no. no thanks.” I spun around to leave and as I left I caught my sleeve on a rack of Wonderbras that I pulled crashing to the floor, right on a main aisle. I started to right it and a dozen or so slid off their perches and scattered to the floor. I didn’t know whether to bolt or cry, but that lovely young 17 year old came to my rescue. “I’ll take care of these sir. Don’t worry about it.”

I mumbled a thank you and slunk out. I began to think this wasn’t going to work.

Certain that everyone in the mall had seen me and was whispering that I was the man in the panty section who tried to steal a rack of bras, I went as inconspicuously as possible to the food court where I ordered a Coke and fries at Burger King and sat down at the most remote table I could find. I had to think about this.

The only thing was, no thoughts would come. Part of me knew that this was a thing that I had to do and the other part of was shouting that this was stupid and wrong and I didn’t know what I was doing. It was sort of a psychological pinball. In a little while, though, staring at the almost empty Coke and the congealed fries got to be a little old, so I got up, walked around the mall a couple more times trying to figure out what to do and then gave up and headed to my car.

I’d deal with this later.

Connie

Like I said earlier, I got home a little after 11. I got out of those clothes and sat on the edge of my bed in my underwear. I knew that I had to get dressed, get out and start looking for work but it just seemed so hard.

A little after noon (I knew it was after noon because Jerry Springer was over and there wasn’t anything else on until 1) the phone rang.

“Hello, this is Angela Hartford from Laura Brown’s. Can I speak to Consuelo please?”

Oh…my…god. I must have broken something when I tipped over the rack. Or they think I stole something. I’m going to die.

“That’s me,” I said in my smallest, most demure voice. It must have sounded like Minnie Mouse, or at least I hoped it did.

“Hi Consuelo. I’m the manager and I received your application. I’d like to set up a time for an interview.”

There was a long pause as I totally reoriented my brain. After squeaking out an “OK,” Ms. Hartford asked me if tomorrow morning at 10 would be too soon. I said that would be fine and we thanked each other and hung up. I wanted to have something to celebrate my first interview, but that would have involved leaving my apartment to buy something and that would have involved going to an ATM and getting some cash, which at this time of the month I didn’t dare do. So I satisfied myself by punching the air with my fist, dancing around the bed and waiting for Ricki Lake to come on.

Turns out the interview wasn’t much of anything, which means they must have been so desperate for help they would have hired a chimpanzee if it could fill out an application. Ms. Hartford and I chatted for about a half-hour and the only question that sounded like it was important was “Can you work weekends?” When I told her I could, I almost saw her putting my name on the schedule.

At the end of the half-hour, she asked, “When could you start?”

“Right now, if you want,” I answered.

“I don’t see any problem there,” and with that, she gave me a bunch of forms to fill out and I joined the ranks of the employed.

Arthur

When I got back home I sat in my car in my driveway for a long time but I didn’t find any answers there either. I fired up my computer and started surfing, looking to see if I could find a size chart or something. I went to LL Bean’s, Land’s End, JC Penny’s and about a half-dozen others, found what I was looking for on some of them and printed them out. Compared them all and found that I was a 14,16 or 20, depending on whether I was measuring my chest, waist or hips. The best I could do with a bra was a 40A and I couldn’t find a 40A in anyone’s on-line catalog. As for panties or pantyhose, forget it. I couldn’t make heads or tails out of anything.

Well, that weekend I went out shopping again, this time to a different mall, one with stores a little further down on the price scale. Well, it didn’t make any difference. As soon as I entered the women’s department, I shrunk up inside and was convinced that everyone’s eyes were on the freak in the dress department. The first store I went in was a discount department store and there were just too many people around and I quickly walked out.

The second store was an off-price store and it was a little crowded, too, but this time I figured it was time to, um, do it or get off the pot, so to speak. So I wandered around the store a while, picked up a pair of men’s jeans so I’d have something to drape over my arm and sort of sidled into the women’s section. I kept my eyes constantly looking around from side to side to see if anyone was going to freak out over me and at the same time tried to keep my head down so nobody would see me. I finally found the women’s size dresses (that was confusing as hell — aren’t all of these things for women? Why did they call the big & tall section the women’s section? And what in the world are missy sizes?) and then found the size 20s. I figured that I’d rather have something a little big than a little small.

I quickly flipped through the dresses and thought to myself that is was no wonder that these dresses were in a bargain store. There were a couple, though, that didn’t look too horrible and I grabbed one and headed to the register. Paid for it without the sky falling in and without being struck by lightning. I was almost home free. Just had shoes, stockings and underwear to go. Oh my god, I thought, I am going to die before this day was through.

Connie

The first few days I worked I spent most of my time unpacking boxes, putting clothes on racks and getting them ready for sale. It seemed like there was always something to open, unpack, hang up or pick up. I couldn’t believe how tired I was at the end of the day, but then again, I hadn’t really worked steady for a long time. I’m not sure I liked being a member of the working class.

On Saturday, I was going to spend my first day on the sales floor, so Friday afternoon Bettye (that’s how she spelled it — don’t ask me), the black girl with the big butt who helped me pick out my first skirt earlier in the week showed me how to run the register and helped me around the floor. It was so complicated. Codes for this and codes for that it seemed like I spent about 15 minutes on every sale just trying to figure out how to ring up everything up and what was on sale and what wasn’t and so on. What a pain in the butt!

Anyway, about half an hour before I was supposed to go home, this guy comes to my register and he’s got about a dozen pairs of panties in his hands and he sort of dumps them on the counter and looks down at his shoes. And I got to tell you, the guy’s sweating like a pig. I mumble a sort-of half-assed hello and begin to ring them up. Now a couple of customers ago, there was this woman who bought a bunch of panties and while ringing up the sale Bettye showed me that the cotton ones were on sale, buy two get two free. The nylon ones were 4 for $25 and the fancy nylon ones were free when you bought a matching bra or 3 for $25. Bettye and I were able to sell this woman a bra and two extra pair of cotton panties because of the different sales and she got a good deal. After all, she walked away with more underwear than I had back at my apartment.

But with this guy, it was like he grabbed the first two handfuls he touched. He had 6 pairs of cotton panties (which meant he was entitled to two more free), 3 pairs of nylon (which meant he had to pay the full price of $9 each) and one fancy pair but without the bra. I probably should have told him about all the specials, but he made me feel weird so I just rang up him to get him out of there. Gave me the willies.

After he left the store, Bettye looked at me. “What is your problem girl?”

“That was a guy,” I said.

“And so what?” she replied. “There are lots of guys who shop here.”

My jaw must have dropped because I knew my mouth was open but I knew that nothing was coming out.

“Well, I don’t know about lots of guys, but there are definitely some. Some of them are obviously pervs. They head straight to the underwear and run their hands all over stuff and you can almost hear them panting.”

I must have made a face because Bettye snorted back a laugh.

“Don’t laugh. Most of the guys who shop here are pretty cool. They know what they like and they don’t bother anyone. If some guy wants to wear panties instead of jockey shorts, who am I to say anything. I’ll just ring ‘em up and maybe suggest a bra to go with.” Bettye smiled and I smiled back but I still thought it was a little weird.

No, it wasn’t a little weird. It was a lot weird. I mean, I am a girl and have been one for 27 years and in all that time I never once gave any thought to my underwear other than knowing I supposed to wear clean ones in case I was in an accident. Not only that, I never once ever thought about wearing boy’s underwear. I mean, just how strange is that?

I know there are guys who do this — I remember seeing the news one day when Dennis Rodman was on in a wedding dress and there’s RuPaul and I’ve seen some of these transvestites (I guess that’s what you call ‘em) on Jerry Springer but you don’t think of people like that just walking around, y’know? It gave me the shakes.

Arthur

I don’t know how I did it, but I got through the rest of the day I picked up a pair of high heels at a discount shoe store, the biggest pair of pantyhose I could find at the drugstore and a three pack of cotton panties at the supermarket. The bra was the hardest part. I couldn’t figure out for the life of me how I was going to buy a bra. I just knew in the bottom of my heart that as soon as I gave a bra to a cashier to ring up, that bells would start clanging and a huge neon sign would drop from the ceiling that said “PERVERT.”

I decided that I could probably get away with it at Wal-Mart if I was smart. I hate Wal-Mart. I hate being in Wal-Mart, I hate Wal-Mart’s merchandise, I hate what Wal-Mart has done to the American economy. I just hate Wal-Mart, but I figured that if there was any place in the world that I could be guaranteed to be faceless it would be Wal-Mart. So I drove over to the nearest Wal-Mart I knew about (I was spending a lot of time driving around). This time I couldn’t pick up any clothes to disguise my true purpose (I wouldn’t be caught dead in Wal-Mart’s clothes, but I grabbed a ream of computer paper, a big bag of Doritos, and some trash bags before heading over the ladies clothing department.

What I wanted to get was one of those bras in a box, because I knew that I couldn’t bear fingering the ones on a hanger looking for my size or walking through the store with a bra hanging from my hand. So I sort of circled around the intimates department, waiting for the customers to thin out, then headed right to the bra rack. I was looking for a 40A but didn’t see one right away. I probably could have found a 40B if I was willing to spend some time pawing through the rack but my heart was beating louder than the cannons in the 1812 Overture and I had to get out of there, so I grabbed the first 40 I found (it was a D) and headed towards the register.

This was going to be the hard part — getting through the register. My hands were sweating so much I thought I’d soak through the computer paper but eventually I made it to the front of the line where this cute 18ish girl was ringing up sales. It was now or never. I clumsily dumped everything on the counter and the bra skidded off the trash bag box and slid off on her side. She picked it up, scanned it and stuck it in a bag and that was that.

And I was still alive.

After I got home I couldn’t wait to put everything on. I ripped apart bags, tore size tickets off, cut off tags and generally made a mess of my apartment. When I got dressed and looked in the mirror, I probably should have been disappointed.

The panties were a little small. OK, they were a lot small. The waistband wouldn’t pull up past my butt and they felt as if they were just about to fall off. They couldn’t fall off, though, because the leg openings were so tight that circulation to my thighs probably had stopped. The bra was OK around the chest but it looked stupid with all that unfilled material in the cup. So I filled it with socks, but do you have any idea how lumpy a D-cup filled with rolled up socks looks? The pantyhose were OK, except that I caught my toenail when putting them on and that started a run that went nearly the entire length of the hose.

All that was OK, though, because you couldn’t see any of it. The dress I bought was so huge, that I could have fit a friend or two in it without too many hassles. The shoes, on the other hand, were not only as undersized as the panties, they were really cheap (and I split the seam on the heel trying to put them on) and way too dressy for this dress.

And not of it mattered a bit, because I felt pretty. As far as I was concerned, the person staring back at me from the mirror was stunningly beautiful and I was high as a kite. Eventually, I came down from my high and when I did I began to recognize some of the, shall we say, flaws in my appearance. I also recognized that I really liked myself this way.

Where could I go from here?

Connie

Over the next few weeks, I got pretty good at my job. I learned everything about the registers, stocking clothes, keeping the place clean and organized. I even did a little selling on the floor, although I didn’t think I knew enough about the merchandise to actually help a customer. For crying out loud, I didn’t know enough to dress myself all that well. Bettye was a big help to me and most of the other girls in the shop helped me out from time to time but it didn’t take long before I started getting tired of having to ask somebody else if I looked OK.

It was one thing when I dressed deliberately ugly, but after spending a couple of weeks as a responsible adult, that just didn’t seem to cut it much for me anymore. It was something else altogether when I looked ugly by mistake. After this one particular day when Angela suggested that I stay in the backroom working stock I decided I couldn’t let this go any further.

I started coming in early and staying late after punching out to try on outfits, check sizes and see what worked and what didn’t. Some of the other girls thought I was crazy — after eight hours working in the store, they just wanted to get home. I didn’t have all that much waiting at home, and being embarrassed by wearing stupid clothes was something I just couldn’t handle again.

I never used to think that clothes meant a thing, but there was this one time when I saw myself in a dressing room mirror in an outfit from the store and I said to myself “Wow.” I looked damn good and I felt even better.

The first time I helped a customer put together an outfit that looked just right I felt almost as good. That was a lot better than schlepping boxes around or ringing registers. The harder and longer I worked, the better I got at it. It turns out that in the long run, the kinds of customers I was best with were women a little older than me who wanted to add just a little bit of spice to a classic look. I had trouble with younger customers because I wasn’t always real good at figuring out where the dividing line between sexy and trashy was. I also thought customers just looking for “good value” or older customers who always bought the same thing were kinda boring. I looked for ladies with some room on their credit cards and a taste for looking good.

Men still made me uncomfortable. Every once in a while we’d get some guy in the store but I’d try to find some work to do somewhere else. Some of the other girls would tease me about it, but I could put up with that. I mean, there were some guys who were buying gifts and they were fun to help. They seemed so cute and seemed so helpless and more often than not they didn’t care what things cost so I could sell them anything in the store. But guys who were there for themselves — they gave the creeps.

Now one Saturday, I spent about 45 minutes helping this guy buy a sweater that must have been for his wife or girlfriend or something and finally sold him a really pretty, soft grey fuzzy cowl-neck sweater that sold for $115. After I rang up the sale and the guy left the store, I bragged about it a little with Bettye. She just smiled at me.

“I thought you didn’t like selling to guys,” she said.

“This guy was cool. He was buying a present for his wife.”

“You think so, huh?” Bettye sort of chuckled. “A couple of weeks ago he bought more than $200 for himself — tried the stuff on an everything. He tell you this was for someone else?”

“Ummm, no.” I was getting a little red.

“Well then honey, you just had your first CD!”

“CD?” I asked.

“Crossdresser. That guy is going to look great in that sweater, but you probably should have tried to sell him those new black skirts we got in last Thursday, too. Would have gone great with it”

“Oh stop it.”

“Seriously. And I tell you what, honey,” Bettye wagged her finger in my face. “You better lose this hang-up you have. We’ll sell whatever we have to whoever wants it and we don’t want to get in any trouble from anybody ‘cause someone got a thing about men.”

I sputtered a little, but Bettye spoke up again. “I’ll tell you what. The next guy who comes in the store, you help him. And I’ll be watching you girl — you better help him the way he should be helped.”

I made a little noise, but I knew that I’d have to get over this hump, too.

And right then, this guy walked up behind us and cleared his throat.

Arthur

I never wanted to take off that dress, but eventually I did and as I put everything away I started to think how nice it would be to get some things that fit the way they should. Right now, the only thing I had that was the right size was the pantyhose and I’d ruined those. So I started to think about how to go about this. I couldn’t just walk up to a clerk in a store and say, “Excuse me, can you help my find a dress? I don’t know what size I wear.”

Or could I?

Here’s a brainstorm — I could come up with a cover story. So I thought for a bit about what kind of story I could tell and came up with this. I lost a bet and the penalty was to spend the day in drag. That could happen. Who could I lose the bet to? A buddy? No, I don’t think that would work. My girlfriend! Then I could get the lingerie, too. I lost a bet to my girlfriend.

What kind of a bet? That would be a little harder, but I decided to make it on a sports event. A football game. No, she beat me at tennis. That’s much better. That would do it.

As soon as the plan came together in my head, I just had to figure out where and when and I just couldn’t wait. I decided to go to the mall and just walk around until I got the courage to walk into a store. I felt like the Little Engine That Could. Can I do this?

“I know I can I know I can I know I can.”

I’m going to do this.

Late Saturday afternoon, close to dinnertime, I drove to the mall psyching myself up all the way. I parked the car, took the escalator up to the main floor and it deposited me in front of Macy’s. I took a deep breath and decided this wasn’t the place. The first store clockwise was a greeting card shop and then I saw Laura Brown’s.

Instinctively, I knew it was now or never. I inhaled deeply and then walked slowly not stopping until I almost bumped into two salesgirls who were talking to each other near the cash register.

Connie

The guy who cleared his throat also almost bumped into us. He looked really nervous, but nice. He was about my height (I’m 5’8”) and like me, a little on the chunky side without being fat (really — I’m not fat, it’s just that sometimes my thighs and boobs make me look that way).

Bettye grinned at me. “I’m going on break. See you in a bit.” And with that, I had my first guy customer.

“Hi. Can I help you with something?” I asked as brightly as I could.

He cleared his throat again. “Yes, I guess so. Promise you won’t laugh?”

I nodded.

“OK.” He took a deep breath. “I lost a bet with my girlfriend and I have to spend all day tomorrow in drag. And I really hope that you won’t think I’m weird and can help me out.” He exhaled and looked at me.

Now I’m not the world’s most perceptive person, but I know bullshit when I hear it and there wasn’t the slightest hint of truth in what he just said. But I did remember what Bettye said to me so if this guy wanted to get some stuff that was his business and it was my business to help him. “So here goes,” I said to myself. To him, I said, “I won’t laugh. Actually, I think it’s kinda cute.”

I could swear he blushed a little.

“So what are you looking for?” I asked.

A brief moment of panic zipped across his face. “Actually, I don’t think I really thought about it. It was just hard enough coming in here. I don’t know what I want. Whatever you suggest will be fine, I guess.”

“Well, OK. We’ll see about that. My name is Connie. What’s yours?”

“Arthur.” I was pretty sure that was his real name, too, because he answered too quickly to have thought about giving me a fake name and nobody would willingly pick a name like Arthur.

“Alright then Arthur, let’s get started. You said you’re doing this for a bet, right?”

He nodded.

“So do you want to play this for laughs or do you want to do it straight?”

Arthur looked a little confused, so I had to clarify things for him.

“Do you want to camp it up and get something really sexy or maybe something real conservative that will embarrass you as little as possible like maybe a tailored pants suit or do you want to get something that looks nice and stylish or something frilly or what? I’m trying to figure out which direction to go here.”

He thought for a second or two and then blurted “No pants.” Then after another second or two, “My girlfriend wouldn’t like that. I guess I just want something nice that won’t make me look too silly.”

“Is that how your girlfriend wants you to play it?” My throat caught a little on the word “girlfriend.”

“I guess so.”

“OK. Next question. Do you want underwear too?”

He must have blushed about 12 shades of red as he stared down to the floor and nodded. This was getting to be fun. I pretended not to be able to figure out his response.

“I’m sorry, Arthur, was that a yes or a no?”

“Yes”

“Good. What kind?”

He looked at me utterly confused. “What kind?” Actually, the look he gave me really did look confused — he wasn’t hiding something, he really didn’t know what I was asking.

“Well, I mean a couple of things. Are you looking for a camisole and half-slip, a full slip, bra, girdle…” I let my voice trail off.

“I guess a bra and…” Now it was his turn to trail off, but I wasn’t going to let him off the hook, so I just smiled and waited. Finally, he almost whispered “panties.” Then he paused a bit and looked away and added “and a slip or half-slip if what you pick out for me needs it.” Which told me that he had done some studying on the subject, even if he was working real hard to pretend he hadn’t.

“That’s no problem, we’ll take care of it.” Now for the zinger. “Now, once you tell me your sizes, we’ll be able to get right to work.”

“My sizes? I don’t know my sizes, I’ve never bought women’s clothes before.”

I noticed that he didn’t say he hadn’t worn women’s clothes, just that he hadn’t bought them. Cute. I was about to start having some fun with him again, but there was something in his face that stopped me. This guy wasn’t at all like the sleazy pervert I thought a guy who wore women’s clothes would be. He actually seemed embarrassed to be here, but almost as embarrassed that he didn’t know his size as he was over being here in the first place. I mean, he really seemed like Joe Average, except that I’d never had to figure out what size skirt Joe Average wore before.

My disdain was turning (a little) to pity.

“Don’t worry, I can take care of it.” I said. “Why don’t you follow me to a dressing room.” I noticed a flash of terror passing over his face. “Relax, Arthur, everything’s going to be fine. I’ll get you all dolled up and won’t charge you an arm and a leg, either.” With that, I led him down to the dressing room that would be the most private and left to find my tape measure.

Arthur

Immediately after blurting out my story I knew it sounded as phony as a three dollar bill and part of my brain was urging my feet to run out of there as fast as they could go. The other part of my brain was telling me that if I’d already made this much of a jackass out of myself, how much worse could it be? In the end, I couldn’t refute that kind of logic, so I didn’t run away.

I don’t know what I expected. Maybe I was thinking that once I whipped out my trusty (HA!) cover story that I’d waltz out of the store looking like, I don’t know, Jennifer Aniston? (although Jennifer Love Hewitt is more my color and type). What I didn’t expect was to receive the third degree from a saleswoman but once I spent two seconds thinking about it I knew I she was just doing her job.

The “she” in question was the salesgirl who was wearing one of those carved plastic name badges that said “Connie.” She was almost as tall as me (but I’m not all that tall, to tell you the truth) but a little on the chunky side. Not fat, but her hips and thighs were plenty rounded and she was pretty generously endowed up top, if you know what I mean.

The thing I noticed most about Connie, though, was her face. She had a wild head of untamed reddish-brown hair that framed face and it was a big, warm, friendly face. Big red lips (and I don’t think she was wearing lipstick, prominent, fleshy cheeks and bright blue eyes and a smile that just couldn’t quit. Every once in a while I got the feeling that she wanted to let loose with a huge guffaw but was working too hard at keeping herself reined in.

So she’s asking me all these questions and I’m trying like hell not to let on how turned on I am or how embarrassed I am. And then she tells me to hit the dressing room and I almost freaked! It never occurred to me that I’d have to try anything on. I thought they’d just know what size I’d wear. There is no way in a million years that I’d be able to actually put something on in a store. In a goddamn public store! What if someone saw me? Connie’s going to know that I’m actually wearing this stuff! What if someone freaked because they saw a man in the dressing room? This was going way too far but Connie didn’t seem to be fazed as she led me to the back of the store, opened the door and indicated that I go inside.

Instant paranoic meltdown. If I could have pulled the floor over my head and disappeared, I would have. I must have been sitting in gallons of sweat and my hands were shaking, but when Connie came back with a tape measure, she didn’t seem to notice. She asked me to raise my arms and she wrapped the tape measure around my chest, then dropped it an inch or two and did it again. Then she measured my waist and then wrapped the tape measure around my butt.

“A perfect 42-38-40,” she giggled. “I’ll be right back. Don’t go anywhere” And she went off towards the front of the store.

I knew the outfit I wanted and I prayed that she’d bring it back to my dressing room. They had it displayed on a mannequin just inside the window. It was a two piece dress in a rich, dark, red with black, abstract floral pattern constructed out of thin, delicate lines. It has elbow length sleeves, a V-neck that didn’t plunge too deeply and a notched collar but it was the gorgeous color and the way the full, calf-length, bias cut skirt draped across the mannequin’s legs that set my heart to quivering.

It wasn’t what she came back with.

“I thought you might like something like this. It’s a skirt set, but it’s not real frilly and it’ll be easy to wear.” Connie gave me the skirt and top. “Try these on and let me know.”

It was a navy blue knit two piece dress with three-quarter sleeves and a scoop neck. The skirt was probably supposed to be a couple of inches below the knee and all in all, it was pretty boring. Now I’m saying that it’s boring. At the time, I was tingling with excitement.

So I closed the door to the dressing room, took off my pants and shirt and put on the skirt and top. Wasn’t all that hard at all. Right.

I avoided looking in the mirror until I was dressed because I wanted my first glimpse to be, I don’t know, ceremonial. Everything felt like it more or less fit, so I slowly turned around to face the mirror.

I don’t know what I expected. Well, yes I do. I expected to be dazzled by a radiant feminine beauty staring back at me. That, or for the sky to open up and a bolt of lightning to strike me dead for wearing a dress in a public (well, sort of public) place. I didn’t expect to see me, wearing a dress that looked lumpy.

Lumpy was exactly the right word for it. It was a clingy sort of knit, and since I didn’t have anything upstairs to push things out a bit, the top hugged every curve and line I had, including a little run around my less than A-cup, the beginnings of what would become a pot belly if I wasn’t careful and love handles that I didn’t remember having. All that was pretty bad, but it wasn’t as bad as the bulge between my legs or the fact that the skirt showed every line of my bunched up boxers. The hairy legs covered by white athletic socks sticking out from the skirt didn’t help either.

Connie knocked once, saying “Knock knock.”

I gave her an absent-minded “Yes,” as I continued to pick out flaws in my appearance.

She interpreted that “yes” as permission to enter and opened the door. I panicked, but there wasn’t much I could do besides stand as rigid as a rock and blush. She grasped my shoulder and turned me around to face her. “Well,” she murmured, almost to herself, “I think we have the size right but this won’t work at all.” She raised her voice a little and looked me in the face. “What do you think?”

“It’s OK” I lied.

“We can do better than this, though. Seriously.”

“Whatever you say.” I tried to grin but it must have looked as weird as the rest of me. “You’re the expert.” That got a bit of a giggle out of her.

“Well, if you don’t mind, I’d like to try something else. Y’know what else?” She paused thoughtfully. “I think we probably ought to get the underwear done first. It’s hard to get a good fit with what you have on now.” Her giggle got a little louder.

My blush got a little deeper. I managed to eke out an “OK.”

“Alright, let me see what I can do. Do you have any preferences?” She was loving this, I could tell.

“Uh, no. Just a bra and, uh, uh, underwear.”

“No problem. Just wait here. Oh, by the way, you’re an 16, same as me,” and with that she headed off towards the lingerie section. I, in the meantime, shut the door as quickly as I could and huddled in the corner, waiting for her to come back.

Connie

This was turning out to be as much fun as I’d had in a long, long time. This guy Arthur was a nice enough guy, I guess, but it was so easy to push his buttons.

When I went to get a dress for him, I was trying to think of something as embarrassing as possible, something really femmy or maybe a tight miniskirt, but I didn’t want him to think I was playing him. Then I thought I could have some fun if I got him something boring and really ugly, so I got the two piece navy knit — something some big mama might think would make her look sharp. The thing was, when I put it on him, he looked so disappointed it (almost) broke my little heart. He looked really sad and I felt like I was being cruel and I didn’t like that feeling one bit. I mean, when you think about it, what was he doing that was all that wrong?

So anyway, I’d have to put a little more thought into this. Or maybe less thought. Maybe I should just pretend he’s like an everyday customer and not a guy. Yeah, like that’s going to happen, I thought. Then this other voice came right back and said why the hell not? These conversations with myself were getting a little weird.

By this time, I’d made it to the lingerie department and had to decide to do something. He did look to be about the same size as me, which meant he probably was going to wear a size 8 panty or maybe even a 7, because while his waist was about my size, his butt sure wasn’t. I’d measured his chest earlier and knew he’d wear a 40 bra (and at that, one of those little voices in my head giggled that they don’t wear 40 AA’s). I hadn’t asked him if he was going to stuff his bra and I couldn’t really think of a diplomatic way to ask.

I also hadn’t asked him how much he had to spend. I didn’t know whether he wanted something really nice or just something cheap.

After seeing the look on his face when he tried on that ugly dress, I decided to go with nice. I also heard something in the back of my mind that said I needed to make it up to him for picking that dress.

There was this one matching set that was really, really pretty. I mean, it was so nice even I’d thought about getting some for myself. I hadn’t, because (a) they were way too expensive for my bank account, even with my employee discount, (b) all my life I’d only thought about underwear in functional terms and the idea of pretty underwear seemed a bit strange to me and (c) who was going to see them — it wasn’t as if I had a hot social life.

The bra had stretch straps with some understated scalloped edging on the sides and back. The top half of the cups were translucent with a tulip pattern embroidered in lace. There was a tiny tulip in the middle where the two underwires met. The panties had the same tulip-embroidery on translucent material rising in a V from the crotch along the leg with the tulip motif continued in a tone-on-tone pattern all over. A little tulip at the center on the waistband added just the right accent. The bra was $26.95, the panties $15, buy two get one free and we had them in white, black, red, burgundy and purple. I picked the white for him as a symbol of his (probable) virginity (that voice giggled again) and brought them over to his dressing room. I guess I wondered what he had been doing all this time.

Arthur

After the salesgirl left I didn’t have a clue what I supposed to do next. Was I supposed to get back into my clothes, say in this dress, take the dress off and stay in my underwear or what? What had I gotten myself into? I decided to do nothing.

“Knock knock,” I heard her say and I opened the door. I could swear she smiled for just a second when she saw I was still in the knit dress.

“Why don’t you put these on. You could try the panties on over your boxers, but I don’t think that would work very well, but I’m pretty sure these will be OK. Do you need some help with the bra?”

I blushed very deeply and shook my head violently to indicate no.

“Alright, then. After you put these on, you could try this dress again and see if it makes any difference having the right underclothes.” She started to walk away. “Oh, by the way, I didn’t know what you wanted to do about the cup on the bra. I got a C cup for you, because if you plan on stuffing it a C cup would look about right on someone your size. If you didn’t want to stuff, I could go look for a smaller cup.”

“No, this will be fine,” and I took the bra and panties from her. We stood in awkward silence for a moment, then she started to pull the door shut.

“OK, then. Holler if you need anything and I’ll go look for a different outfit.”

Right. Like I was going to holler for anything. I peeled off the dress and then slipped off my boxers and I can’t tell you how strange I felt being naked in a women’s dressing room in a store in a mall. Connie was right, the panties did fit just right. A little snug around the legs, but they hugged my ass just right and I just loved the way I looked in them. They were so pretty.

I put the bra on backwards, hooked it up, slid it around the right way and then slipped my arms through. It fit right, too, except for the cups. I could probably stick a pair of socks or two in them when I got home, but I wasn’t really thinking of that right now. Right now, I was staring in the mirror at this guy who was wearing the absolute prettiest matched panty/bra set I’d ever seen and that guy was me! Damn! This is fun!

I pulled the knit dress back on and it did look better without my wrinkled boxers underneath it and with a little forward motion up top, but it still wasn’t the image I had in my head. Just the same, though, I could get used to this. I was beginning to convince myself that this is what I wanted.

Then Connie did her “Knock knock” thing again.

Connie

So what could I pull together for this guy (and why did I care so much, all of a sudden)? I mean, I could probably wrap him up with what he had now, make my commission and never see him again and everything would be cool but that just didn’t seem right. I actually wanted to get the right thing for Arthur and I couldn’t quite figure out what that was.

Pants were out of the question, as were mini-skirts, shorts, dressy dresses, career separates and a good deal of our basics. I was having a hard time coming up with something and then my eyes landed on our window. There, I saw the perfect outfit for him. It was a dark red two piece dress that would have come almost to my ankles, with a very pretty, very subtle black floral pattern. It was soft and feminine without being frilly and I remember that even I took a second look at it when Lisanne, our receiver, unpacked it. I even remember thinking that with Arthur’s finely chiseled features and dark coloring that it would look good on him, although I can’t for the life of me imagine that a dress would ever look good on a man.

I almost ran over to the rack and checked for sizes — 14, 18, 24, 26 — no 16. For a second I thought about showing Arthur a 14 and an 18 and seeing which worked best, but then I had a hunch and checked the mannequin in the window. BINGO! A 16! So I stripped the mannequin as quickly as I could (stabbing myself with hidden pins a couple of times in the process), shook the dust off the dress, regained my breath and brought the dress over to Artie (I’m sorry — I just can’t call someone Arthur without thinking of an aardvark).

“Knock, knock,” I said and opened the door to give him the dress. The expression on his face was totally priceless.

Arthur

She brought me THE DRESS. This was the dress I saw in the window that I almost drooled over. Of all the things in that entire store that I wanted to wear, she brought me exactly the right thing. I almost fainted. I did, I really almost fainted.

Then I remembered that I wasn’t supposed to like this and this was all for a lost bet and as fast as I could I tried to get hold of myself. I have no idea how well I did at it and I have no idea what Connie must have thought about my reaction to the dress. I felt like I was drenched in sweat and my heart was hammering but I mustered up every bit of nonchalantless (I know there’s no such word but I it’s the only way I can describe it) and took the dress from her.

“OK,” I said. “I’ll try this one too.” I tried to heave a tired sigh, but it probably sounded more like hyperactive panting. The expression on Connie’s face as she closed the door was pretty bizarre. I couldn’t tell if she was amused, amazed, shocked or even a little scared. To tell you the truth, though, I didn’t care a bit. I just wanted to see how I looked in that dress.

As soon as the door closed, I almost ripped that navy monstrosity off me, flinging it in the corner. I lifted the top over my head and allowed it to float over my body and without even glancing in the mirror (I didn’t want to spoil my first look) I pulled the skirt up around my waist, adjusting it just so. Then I turned around and faced the mirror.

And I loved what I saw.

Whoever made that dress, made it for me. It draped over my body in the most languorous, sensual way possible. The deep, dark red color was perfect for me and the subtle black decorative lines mirrored the subtle, dark lines of my eyes, brows and lips. I was transfixed and the longer I looked at that mirror, the better I liked it.

Forget no makeup. Forget short hair. Forget the athletic socks. This person in the mirror just looked so right. When I slipped off my socks, I almost swooned as it made what was already perfect better. For the first time in my life, I didn’t feel like a freak. I felt like this is the way I should look.

Connie

I didn’t know what was taking so long inside the dressing room. After clearing my throat a couple of times, I thought I ought to do or say something, so I asked “Everything alright in there?”

He didn’t respond for a beat or two, then squeaked out an “Uhh, yes. Everything’s fine.”

“How does it fit?”

I heard him clear his throat. “Fine.”

“Does it look OK?”

A little more throat clearing, then a low, soft, “Yes.”

“Can I see?”

Another pause. “Do you have to?” he asked.

That was a good question. He was the customer. If he’s satisfied, why should I care? I did care, though. There was something about him that piqued my curiosity and I also wanted to know if my take on the dress was right. “No, you don’t have to, but I’d like to see how you look anyway.”

Another pause that stretched into a few seconds and then he slowly opened the door.

I gotta tell you, I was amazed. Shocked almost. As the door was opening, I was steeling myself to keep from giggling, but when I finally saw Arthur in that red dress giggling was the furthest thing from my mind. He looked good. He really and truly looked good in that dress.

Now I know he would have looked better if the bit of leg that peeked from under the hem was shaved and a different hair style would have improved things, too, but even with all of that he looked good. The color was right, the fabric was right, it hung on him right and it fit just right.

Most of all, though, it was the expression in his face that got me. He knew how good he looked in that dress and it was like a revelation to him. He was positively radiant.

I have never, ever seen a customer react that way to anything I selected. To tell you the truth, I was as confused at that moment as much as I’d ever been. I thought I would have been a little, I don’t know, either irritated or smug at having just helped a pervert but his reaction to the dress took the winds right out of that sail. I should have been pleased that I helped a customer find what she (she? he?) wanted, but that wasn’t quite what I was feeling either.

I was jealous.

I was jealous of him. Not once in my life had I ever felt really good because I looked good and here was a guy (a fucking GUY!) standing in front of me in a dress I sort of liked but couldn’t afford who looked a hell of a lot better than I did and knew it. I was jealous and as soon as I recognized the fact that I was jealous I nearly freaked but then brought myself under control real fast before I let things get out of control. This was something I’d have to deal with later. Much later, I hoped.

“Not too bad, is it? What do you think?” After all that, all I could manage was something stupid like that, but what was I supposed to say — “That dress is you!” Ugh!

He smiled to himself for just a moment. “I think it’ll be OK. I can go with this.”

“You sure?” I asked. “I can show you some more,” and I laughed, as if letting him in on a joke.

“No, this is OK.”

“Alright.” I didn’t know where to go with this. “Why don’t you get dressed and I’ll ring you up. You can leave the other outfit there, I’ll take care of it.” I paused for a moment. “You don’t really need a slip with that, but what about pantyhose?”

“Pantyhose? I guess so.”

“What shade?”

“I don’t have any idea.” He was almost whispering by now. “Whatever you think is best.”

“Alright, I can take care of it. I’ll meet you at the register.”

On the way back to the register, I picked up a pair of suntan, nude toe pantyhose in a size I thought would fit. I remembered that they were on sale, 3/$15 and on a hunch I added two more, one in nude and one in coffee. Riding that same hunch, I added a couple of pairs of panties, one in red, one in black. They were buy two get one free. I wanted to see what would happen.

Arthur

I did not want to take that dress off, but I knew I’d have to. Off it came, carefully and lovingly and gently placed back on the hangers. I slipped off the panties, unhooked the bra and put my “real” clothes back on. What a comedown, but I knew I’d done the right thing. I couldn’t wait to get home.

As I came out of the dressing room, a mother and daughter were browsing the clearance rack nearby and gave the man with the dress, bra and panties draped over his arm a strange look, but I hardly noticed. I headed to the checkout, where Connie was fussing with something beside the register.

“All set, I guess,” as I laid my things on the counter. “I have to thank you for this. You were really helpful and I really appreciate that you didn’t get all weird or anything,”

I thought I saw her smile to herself. “No problem at all. That’s what we’re here for.” She straightened out my purchases and then added a couple of things on top.

“The panties are on sale, buy two get one free. That’s a really good deal, so I picked out another couple pairs for you. And these pantyhose are on sale, so I got three pairs for you. You don’t need to buy them all, but it’s such a good deal I thought you might want some extras.”

Another moment of truth. This was supposed to be the losing payoff in a bet, so why would I need more than one of anything? On the other hand, it was a good deal and why shouldn’t I have a couple extra panties? On the other hand, if I bought them, it would be like telling Connie that I liked this stuff and wanted to wear it. On the other hand (how many hands did I have?) there was something about her I trusted.

“Go ahead,” I said. “I’ll take them.”

This time when she smiled, it wasn’t just to herself. She looked so pretty when she smiled.

Connie rang up the sale, processed my Visa, carefully folded up my new wardrobe and bagged it all. She was chattering amiably all the time, but I don’t think I heard a word she said. I couldn’t focus on anything besides getting back to my apartment.

Finally, she handed me the bag. “I hope your, uh, girlfriend likes the dress. You do look good in it.” Her smile was warm, affectionate and genuine.

“Thanks. You really were a big help.” I wanted to say something else, but nothing intelligent would come out. I just smiled and nodded and started to leave.

Connie

He was so grateful. He made me feel as if I had done him a huge favor and when I thought about it, all I did was help him with an outfit. No biggie.

Yeah, right. In my mind, Arthur had traveled the distance from a panting pervert to a really cute puppy in a very short while. Was I confused? Not at all. Almost everyday I select panties and a bra for a guy and then try to get him to talk to me (and ask me out? maybe?). Happens all the time.

As he started to leave, I wanted to say something, but “have a nice day” or “thank you come again” didn’t quite cut it. So I just blurted “See ya,” except my voice sorta broke and it came out as a question.

He tilted his head, smiled, blushed a little and nodded. I couldn’t figure out what that might have meant. Then he was gone.

Arthur

All the way home my mind was whipping from one thought to another. I thought of the dress, of me in it, of me in a dressing room in a store, of the bra and panties, of just being in a woman’s store.

I also thought of Connie.

And when I got home, before I started to change into my new clothes, I called the florist and sent a dozen roses to Connie at the store. I had the card signed “Thank you so very very much. See ya. Arthur.”