This is an unauthorized continuation of Jeremy Chandler’s, “My Summer in Pantyhose,” last added to by Jeremy 04/07/2023. The story line and characters belong to Jeremy Chandler and are used without express permission. What follows is intended as fan fiction with the greatest of admiration for Jeremy and appreciation for the original work.

  “Well, hello, Samantha, it’s good to see you again.”

  “Sorry to barge into your family lunch like this, but Julie was sure you wouldn’t mind.”

  “Oh, you’re welcome anytime. I always cook a big meal when I know they’re coming so I can have leftovers, so an extra person is no bother. Come on in. Julie, you can set an extra place for Samantha.”

  Julie headed for the kitchen while Jamie slipped off his shoes in favor of his slippers and took his duffle to the downstairs bathroom. He didn’t know why his mom thought he should wear the blue skort. Well, she had told him, but he didn’t particularly buy the reason. She had said that it would be nice if he wore them because Grandma had bought them for him. What bothered him was that he’d have to wear them home. That meant giving someone the opportunity to see him going from Grandma’s to the car, or from the car to the house at home. If only they had an automatic garage door opener. As it was, it was always his job to open or close the garage door.

  Maybe, he thought, he should save up his money from the Fabric Barn to get one for his mom for Christmas. He wondered how much a garage door opener would cost.

  “Oh, Jamie, you’re wearing the blue skort I bought you. How do you like them?”

  “I don’t know, Grandma. I haven’t really worn them before, except to try them on and show them to Mom and Julie. Maybe after today, I’ll know better.”

  “Well, they look really good on you. And I like your top too.”

  “I agree, Jamie. They show off your pantyhose covered legs really well,” Samantha said. I’m jealous because Julie got a nice fashion show of all your new stuff. And I’m jealous of how good you look in them.”

  “Are we going to fawn over Jamie’s clothes? Or are we going to eat?” Julie wanted to know. “I’m starving.”

  As they tucked into the ham and sweet potatoes, the conversation continued.

  “You’ve worn the one’s your mother bought you to work. Are you going to wear these as well?”

  “Ah, I don’t think so. The two you bought me are nice, but they don’t look much like shorts. I didn’t wear the other one that Mom bought to work because it is a skirt with shorts underneath. I don’t think that Kelli will be able to leave me alone about it. She’s kind of slowed down about my pantyhose. If I show up wearing what looks like a skirt, she’ll start up all over. Not on the boyette thing, but being girly or something, only this time it’d be worse.”

  “Maybe I should talk to Lucille about her teasing you.”

  “Oh, no, Grandma. Don’t do that. The last thing I want is for her to think she’s gotten to me. My only chance to get her to back off is not to react to her teasing. It’s a slow process, but it works. Durning the sidewalk sale she didn’t call me ‘boyette’ one time. I don’t know if she’d given up on it or if we were just too busy she may have given up on teasing me, and in case she has given up on it I don’t want to give her any encouragement to start it up again.”

  “OK, I think I understand. I didn’t really think about how they looked when I bought them. The sales girl said they were really popular.”

  “Well, it seems that everyone has seen your new wardrobe except me, I’m hurt,” Samantha said, faking a pout.

  “Not my fault,” Jamie told her. “It wasn’t like we planned a fashion show and decided to not invite you. It’s just that we were there and they wanted to see my new stuff.”

  “Take it easy on him, Samantha. He’s right. If you want to blame someone, blame me. Part of the time I’d normally spend with you, I spent with Aaron. Otherwise, you’d have been there to see it.”

  Samantha rolled her eyes.

  “Another thing to feel hurt about. Some hot guy walks into your life and suddenly, I’m second fiddle.” Samantha smiled as she said that, spoiling the effect.

  “If you don’t mind feeling like a third wheel, I’m sure that Aaron wouldn’t mind if I invited you along when we see a matinee,” Julie teased.

  “No thank you. Your mother might ask me about how you behaved yourself and I might have to lie to her. If you did do something I’d be honor bound to keep that a secret, and if you didn’t, I might be tempted to say you did so she didn’t think I was lying.”

  “You do realize just how messed up that statement was, don’t you?”

  “OK, OK neither is the case, but still, third wheel? No thank you.”

  “You could always double date,” Julie’s mother offered.

  “If I had a current boyfriend I suppose we could. But I’m taking a break in that department. All the boys I know are such immature jerks it’s painful to be around them. I’d ask Julie to have Aaron set something up, but my mother hasn’t given me permission to date college guys.”

  “Too bad,” Julie said. “Aaron is anything but immature. Wouldn’t you say Mom?”

  “I’ll have to give him that. Mature, polite and helpful; all good qualities. I still reserve judgement, but he is impressive so far.”

  Monday while grandma drove him to work she made small talk.

  “Your mother tells me that Tabitha came over Saturday and spent the rest of the day with you.”

  “Yeah. She likes to do RPG and I told her about Mike’s new game and how awesome it is. She wanted to get a look at it so I talked to Mike about letting her come over with me on Saturday. Her mother brought her over and she borrowed Julie’s old bike and we rode to Mike’s house. Her mother was going to pick her up at five, but she had an accident. So Aaron gave Tabitha a ride home after dinner. He bought us all ice cream at Cold Stone on the way.”

  Sounds like a date to me, Grandma thought.

  “I like Tabitha. She’s always given me friendly help when I needed it at the Fabric Barn even before you started working there. Sounds like you two had fun.”

  “We did, Grandma. I… I told her about what Megan did and she made it easy to talk to her about it and even made me feel a little bit better.”

  “Good. I was concerned that you were holding it all inside. Your mother told me that you hadn’t talked to either her or Julie; you needed some to talk to about it. You should spend some more time with Tabitha. I think it’ll help you get past the thing with Megan.”

  “Me too. We’re going to go to that new mall near the high school next Saturday and spend some time in the arcade.”

  New girlfriend in the making, Grandma thought.

  “What’s the scoop on this, what’s his name… Jamie?” Tabitha’s father asked her mother as they got ready for work Monday morning. “How is it he’s wearing pantyhose. It’s all academic, but I do know a little about cross-dressers, or as they are known these days, transgender. They usually dress in stealth for years or even decades before coming out. I guess that some never come out.”

  “He didn’t exactly ‘come out’, he was yanked out. He was in stealth for a number of years, wearing his mother’s pantyhose.’ She got off work early the last day of school. She had an errand that could wait until the end of the day. When she came home she was nearly two hours earlier than usual thinking she’d change clothes, grab Jamie and head out for pizza. She found him lying on the couch wearing long tee-shirt and a pair of her pantyhose.

  “She’s savvy enough to know that it was deeper than just about pantyhose and wanted to find out just how deep. She knew that she needed to do something. She told him that it wasn’t so much about him wearing pantyhose as it was a matter of sneaking into her room and borrowing her stuff without permission.

  “In the end, she gave him a choice… be grounded for an indeterminate time or wear pantyhose 24/7 for the summer. That is to say openly wear pantyhose. He chose to wear pantyhose. His mother is striving to find out just what it’s all about; kind of prepare herself for where the limit is. So little by little she’s introducing more girl’s clothes into the mix. So far he’s not resisted the clothes but only that some of them may bring him some ridicule if people see him.”

  “I see; is he gay?”

  “She doesn’t think so. He’s shown a normal interest in girls for a fourteen-year-old boy. Until recently he had a girlfriend and went on dates with her. She observed them kissing on one occasion. Turns out he wasn’t the only one she was kissing and they broke up. That leaves Tabitha a clear field and she is interested in him.”

  “So aside from his penchant for pantyhose and apparently other girl’s clothes, he’s a normal teenage boy.”

  “It would seem so.”

  “Is he interested in Tabitha?”

  “I think he is, but doesn’t realize it. They’ve been friends at work for several weeks and since he broke up with his girlfriend, that friendship has deepened. It’s not like he’s jumping into a relationship on the rebound, but more like he just needs a friend and Tabitha is ready to be there. She’s hoping, and seeing their interactions together, I think if she just doesn’t push, one day he’ll realize that he’s got feelings for her.”

  “You think it’s a wholesome relationship?”

  “I think it would be cruel to both of them if we didn’t let them work it out for themselves. I think we should keep an eye on it, but hands off. To that end, I’ve told Tabitha that since she had dinner with his family, she should invite him to come to dinner with us on Saturday. They’ve planned an afternoon at the mall arcade. So it’s almost like her staying to dinner after them doing that RPG thing. If she brings him to dinner, that’ll give you a chance to take the measure of him. I think you’ll be as impressed as I am.”

  Since the sidewalk sale, Jamie had been working five days a week from nine to two. At first he wasn’t too sure that he liked it, but Lucille kept the lunch schedules the same so he got some time just to talk with Tabitha. Grandma always came a little early to pick him up and he often found her talking with Lucille after clocking out.

  He’d really settled in at work and even Kelli had seemed to back off on her constant teasing him. On Wednesday she had totally caught him off guard. He’d only been at work for about an hour when she came to the back room. Jamie heard her come and looked up to see who it was.

  “Are the bins full already?” he asked her.

  “No not yet.”

  “Oh, what can I do for you?”

  “I've been thinking.”

  The quip came to ask her if it hurt, but he thought better of voicing it.

  “Last weekend, we got together with my cousin and her family. She asked me about work and I told her about the sidewalk sale and how busy we’d been. I mentioned to her that we had a boyette working here. When she asked me what I meant by that I told her that you reminded me of the main character in the movie, because you had a girlfriend and wore pantyhose.”

  “What movie?”

  “Boyette. Haven’t you seen it?”

  “No, I didn’t even there was a movie called Boyette. I never heard the word until you called me that.”

  “Oh, I thought that everyone at least knew about it.”

  “Soooo, what’s this movie about and how did I remind you of the main character?”

  “It’s about this gay guy who has a massive crush on a straight guy. He can’t just come on to the guy because he knows the guy is straight. He really wants to spend time with him, so he pretends to be straight. It works and they pal around together. The problem comes when a girl gets interested in him and he has to go on a date with her or blow his cover about being straight.”

  “So how do I remind you of that character?”

  “That’s what my cousin wanted to know. So I explained that he’s pretending to be straight, but he’s gay and you say your straight and wear pantyhose. She called me on that and asked if I thought that made me think you were really gay.” Kelli looked down.

  Jamie was working on not being angry. He wasn’t gay. Why does everyone think that just because he likes wearing pantyhose, OK and these days other girl’s clothes, meant he was gay?

  Keeping his voice even, he said, “Does it?” dreading the answer.

  “It did,” Kelli admitted. “But my cousin, who’s a social worker pointed out that cross-dressers aren’t any more likely to be gay than anyone else. In fact there’s some data that suggests that they may be a little less likely. So I guess that I owe you an apology. I really didn’t know. I mean, how was I to know? I’ve never known a cross-dresser before and I’ve only met two gay guys and they were so camp it wasn’t even funny. The only thing missing was they- didn’t talk with a lisp. Oh, God. I’m putting my foot in my mouth big time.

  “What I really want to say is that I’m sorry and I won’t be calling boyette anymore. You’re a really good worker. Lucille is good with you wearing the clothes you wear. Look I better be getting back to work.”

  With that, Kelli turned went back to the sales floor.