Daddy, Please Refresh Your Lipstick

When it counted, when I was growing up, my dad was nothing to me. To him I was a "Mama's Boy". I wasn't the real boy he wanted. I didn't play football. I didn't go hunting. I didn't spend my weekends working on junk cars. These were not the things I was interested in. I was thoughtful and bookish. I preferred the Cooking Channel to American Chopper. I was shy and didn't really know how to be a boy around girls. I kinda liked the way they looked and that they didn't have to get dirty to please their father.

When I won first place at the County Fair for my cherry pie, he wasn't there. He was watching the tractor pull. When I got my first perm and manicure, he stared at me and walked away. When I decided to try the profession of Hair Stylist, he laughed and went to the bowling alley. When my mother was dying of breast cancer, he was having an affair with the blonde tootsie waitress down at the cocktail lounge. When my mother died, I moved out of the house and he didn't notice. He was invited but didn't come to the opening of my first salon. I called and asked him why he didn't come and he said: "I don't like Sissy stuff".

It has been many years since I had seen my father. I had been doing just fine without seeing him. I have built a nice little business of five salons and spas which are known as the swankiest in the city. I am, what you would call, rich. And I am what I am. I am a somewhat feminine man in a feminine profession who makes rich females feel and look as feminine as possible. Let me tell you that means big bucks. And a lot of satisfaction. And I love what I am doing.

Over the years I had gotten information about my father from time to time. After Mom died and the blonde cocktail waitress kicked him out, he started drinking and missing work. He had lost several jobs during those years. As he contiued to drink, he got into trouble with the law and finally landed in jail. It was from jail that he called me and asked that I go his bail. I did. Big mistake. When I hauled his ass out of jail, he was happy to walk thru the door. But when we were outside he took a look at my permed hair and manicured nails and said: "Thanks for the bail but I can't let anyone see me with a Sissy, see ya, Bye."

Whatever I had felt, if there ever was anything, for this man, left me at that moment. I was through with him. And he never was with me at all. He wasn't there for me or for my mother. So be it.

A few years later, I was doing very well. The business was going great. I was doing great. There was no wife or girlfriend, but that is how I wanted it. I enjoyed working with my employees, who were almost all female. And I enjoyed working with my clients, who were almost all female. And I enjoyed being myself, which was almost, but not quite, female. You can call me a Sissy if you like. But that would be a rich, happy, contented Sissy.

Then one day, as a sat in my office, picking out new gowns for the salons, my secretary, Syd, buzzed me.
"Mr. Leslie, there is a rather scruffy looking man at the reception desk, who claims to be your father. Should I send him away?"
I flashed on the in house monitoring system and panned the reception area. Yes, there he was. It was my father.
"No, Syd, send him up to the office."
I don't know why for sure, but just seeing him reminded me of all the slights and sarcasm and meanness this man had caused me over the years. And I thought of my poor mother who died knowing this pisser was screwing around while she lay on her death bed. I didn't know what I wanted to do to him, but I was sure I wanted to make this man miserable. I had no doubt that he was here to try to get some money from me. Maybe he could. But he would have to earn it. A little light bulb was lighting up in my sissified head.

Syd knocked lightly on the door and opened wide to allow my father to come into the room.
The man who came in was scruffy. His clothes were dirty, His shoes were scuffed and had holes. His face was covered in a scraggly grey stubble. And he smelled. I smelled of Intimate. He smelled of garbage.

He shuffled into the room and looked around at the feminine decor of the office and at the salon chair and professional dryer standing in my private work station. (It really was nice being a rich Sissy) He coughed in his dirty hand and said:
"Hello, son. Long time no see."
"Yes"
I wasn't going to help the bastard make conversation.
He reached out his disgusting hand for a handshake. I hesitantly offered my French Nailed hand. Which he took with a quizzical look on his face.
I didn't say anything.
Let him do the talking. I was just a Sissy.
"Son, I know we haven't been close. But I haven't got a cent. I have been sleeping on the street for the past week. I am totally desperate. Can you help me out?"
I wanted to laugh in his face. But I knew it would be more satisfying to use another approach.
"Dad, I won't give you a cent. You never gave me anything but grief. And you did the same to Mom. I shouldn't even let you in this office. But being as soft and ineffectual and sissified as you always thought I was, I can't let you go back to sleep on the street.
I will give you a job and a place to sleep. I will not give you any money until you work a month at this job and do it properly. I will feed and cloth and house you until you have enough money to do it for yourself. You have to accept the job I give you and anything else I give you with no complaints. It that understood?"
"Yes, it is, son. I knew you would treat me right."
"Syd, please come here."
"Syd, please that this gentleman down to Salon B. I am sure the girls down there will be happy to do a little clean up work. Then find a salon gown which fits him."
"Syd, do you remember that special gentleman we serviced this summer? I am sure you do. This gentleman will need all those services and probably a lot more. Just get things started and I will come down and give some special orders after a little while."
"Dad, follow this young woman. She will get you cleaned up and something to wear. The clean up will involve some things you have never experienced. DO NOT COMPLAIN! You asked for my help and I will give it. But only the way I want to. You are now my employee. And my employees look and smell and dress a certain way. That will be your way now. Do you understand?"
"I can use a good clean up and some fresh clothes. Thank you, son."
"Don't thank me too soon, DAD! But I guarantee you are going to cleaned up and have new clothes. You have never been cleaned up and dressed like you are going to be today. If you are working with my clients, you have to look and feel like one of us."
"Syd, a clean up and then Steps 1 - 5. Then I will give you further instructions."
Dad looked at me curiously and asked:
"What are 'Steps 1 - 5'?
"OH, Dad, you are going to love it.
Step 1 is Total Depilation.
Step 2 is a soothing Facial.
Step 3 is a shampoo and roller set, good thing you haven't been able to afford a haircut recently.
Step 4 is a Mani/Pedi Package.
Step 5 is the Ladies Who Do Lunch Makeup Application. Enjoy!"
"SON!!!! I can't do that!"
"Yes, you can, FATHER! You are broke. You have nowhere to live. You have no job. You have no clothes. You have no food.
You can do THAT. You have to do that. Do you want to live? Do you want a job? Do you want to eat? You better learn to love lipstick, Daddyo!"
"Syd, take him down and make sure he knows exactly how a sissy feels. He might even like it."
My father left the room with his head down. My head was as high as could be. I was wondering if his hair, after it had been washed, would be long enough for a nice sissy perm. Such a nice thought.

About three hours later, I wandered down the street to a pretty shop where I was well acquainted with the owner. I purchased a great deal of her merchandise for my father and even bought a few things for myself. As I left the shop, I smiled and looked over the mannikins wearing the sexy lingerie and the chic dresses. I loved my life and I loved being able to give my father just what he deserved. Besides, what I bought him was actually rather cute. I carried all the packages into Salon B and tossed them on the pink velvet daybed. I heard murmuring behind the curtain where the makeup application station was located. I smiled to myself and pulled the curtain aside. Syd and two other beauticians were standing there admiring their handiwork.

There he was. My father. Sitting in the makeup chair. His head covered in pink rollers. His fingernails and toenails shiny scarlet. There was not a nasty old man hair anywhere on his body, other than those tightly rollered on his head. But best of all, from my viewpoint, Syd had outdid her best work. His eyebrows were thinned and shaped as though he were June Allison. His complexion was flawless, in a cameo cream color. His cheeks blushed rose and I hadn't even said anything. His eyes were intense with the radiant smokey sexual glow of a Prom Queen's wet dream. His lashes curled up so high with jet black mascara that they almost reached the peaks of his arched eyebrows. And, Oh My God, his lips! His lips said" "I am Doris Day and please have your way with me." Syd had never never done my lips like those lips. I was jealous. Syd just smiled. Dad did not.

"Well, Daddy, I have been shopping. You had no clothes, so I have taken care of everything. Too bad for you that a Sissy like me only knows certain places to shop. But for your new job, I bought you just what you need. Now that Steps 1- 5 are completed, we can get you dressed and off to work. By the way, I forgot to tell you what your job is to be. We need a new trainee in the Nail Salon. I hope you like feet. Now let's get you dressed. I know you want to get out of the pink silk gown and get your hair out of those rollers. No problem. We'll just ask Syd to help you into your new clothes and then it's off to painting nails you go."
"Syd, he will need a lot of training with these new clothes. I bet he doesn't even know how to put on a longline bra. Please teach him well. We can't have him falling out of his cups while he is bending over some fat woman's piggies. Brush out his set into something nice, but schedule him for a perm tomorrow, he really needs the volume for the bouffant style I envision for him.
"Here's his first bra. Help him into it."
Dad's lipsticked mouth had fallen open a long time ago.

"Dad, please close you mouth.
"And, Daddy, Please refresh your lipstick!"

As I turned to leave Salon B. I realized I hadn't felt so good in years. It felt good to be a Sissy who had an even bigger Sissy for a father.