FIVE DRESSES

Lucy’s story, as told by the people closest to her. In five parts.

PART ONE
ELLIE/1920s FLAPPER DRESS

1

It all started at the School Leavers’ Ball, or more accurately, the week leading up to it. Woolton Comprehensive in Liverpool. I was in my final year there and my kid brother Mark a year below in Lower Sixth. I was in my room, lying on my bed, reading a Lonely Planet guide to Europe. I had Interrail tickets booked for the Monday after the ball. Two whole months away. And then uni when I got back - at least, assuming my grades turned out ok. Mark had wandered into my room as he often did when he was bored.
“Hey Ellie.” He started fidgeting with a pen that was lying on my desk, clicking the top on and off until it was sufficiently annoying for me to put my book down and pay him some attention.
“Hey Little Bro. What’s up?”
“I’m a bit fed up to be honest. Mum’s on the phone downstairs, last minute planning with Derek before they go away tomorrow. And you’re off for the summer, and then to uni. And I’ve just got a summer of shelf stacking in the supermarket to look forward to, and then a whole year back in school…”
“Awww. Poor you!” I could be quite sarcastic sometimes, it wasn’t one of my better traits. Still, I tolerated him better than perhaps most big sis-ters tolerated their younger teenage brothers. We’d always been close, and since dad upped sticks and moved in with his new girlfriend two years ago we’d become even closer; coming together to help mum through the changes. He ignored my comment and meandered over to the window, half heartedly looking out at the typical English drizzle that had arrived, right on cue, at the start of our school holidays yesterday. “At least you’ll be earning some money…” I continued, “…and there’s the ball next weekend to look forward to. What are you going as?”
The Leavers Ball was usually one of the highlights of the year. Despite its name, the whole school attended, from the 11 year old first years to upper sixth students like myself. Because younger kids were there, it wasn’t set up like a prom, where you had to come with a date, but instead was just a huge fancy dress event on the Saturday at the end of the first week of the holidays.
He grunted in response. “Me and my mates were going to go as orcs - you know, from Lord of the Rings…”
I rolled my eyes. “It’s no wonder none of you have girlfriends…”
He ignored me, and carried on. “But all the hire costumes are so expensive, and I’m broke until I start at the supermarket next week. So. I dun-no. Maybe I just won’t go this year.” He turned towards me, looking particularly sorry for himself.
I sat up on the edge of the bed. An idea crept into the corner of my brain. “What if I could fix you up with something that you didn’t need to pay for?”
He looked up, hopefully. “That would be great, yeah.”
I’ve wondered once or twice since then whether if I’d stopped at that point, things might have turned out differently. But maybe I knew subcon-sciously, and that’s why I made the suggestion. “Why don’t you go in drag? We’re pretty much the same size - that growth spurt you keep claiming is just around the corner hasn’t materialised yet, and there’s that outfit I wore last year you could borrow if you like - you remember, the flapper dress I got from that vintage shop?”

He froze for a moment and looked at me, that way people do when they think the other person knows something but they aren’t sure. I knew I’d have to press on so he didn’t have time to back out. I strode over to the wardrobe and lifted out the dress.
Every time I touched it, it still gave me that same shiver of excitement I’d felt when I first found it. It was the most beautiful dress I’d ever worn - ivory satin, with a scoop neck decorated with sequins in leaf shaped patterns. Above the bust was a line of matching tassels that extended six inches or so down to the waist. Between them the sequin decoration continued down to a second line of tassels which ran all the way around the dress from hip to mid thigh, dipping in an elegant v shape at the front where the sequins were arranged into a diamond shape. And under them another strip of satin fabric with a further hoop of tassels down to just below the knee. I’d hold it up and run my fingers through them, en-tranced as they flowed like liquid over my hand.
I didn’t ask again, but held it out in front of him. “Here, try it on”
He hesitated.
“Oh, come on, don’t be so daft; it won’t bite” I grabbed his t-shirt at the waist and before he could resist I had it off over his head. That left him only wearing a pair of thin football shorts and in one moment I held the dress above him, instructing him to hold up his hands.
It was too far gone now for him to get out of it.
He gasped as the cool satin of the dress slid down his body.
“There! I’d say that’s a perfect fit! How does it feel?”
The tassels swished over his bare legs as he turned to face himself in the mirror on the back of the open wardrobe door. For a moment his body softened, his arms resting elegantly by his sides, one leg in front of the other, his feet arched as though in heels. I looked back at him over his shoulder and smiled but his expression changed and his body stiffened.
“Take it off me. Now. I’m not going to wear your stupid dress!” He was pulling at it violently and I thought it might tear. I pulled it back over his head and he grabbed his t-shirt and fled my room without saying another word.

Later that evening I knocked softly at his door. “Hey. Can I come in?”
He didn’t reply, but I opened the door anyway and went in. I perched at the foot of his bed. “Sorry about earlier.”
“Forget about it.”
“You were trembling. When you wore the dress.”
“Look, I said forget about it, ok?”
“Have you worn if before?”
“Of course I’ve not bloomin’ well…”
I interrupted him. “It’s just that a couple of times I’ve found a sequin from it on the carpet in my room. Like someone’s had it out from the ward-robe. But I’ve not worn it since last year’s party.”
He stared silently down into his lap.
I slid closer so that we were sat shoulder to shoulder, leaning against the wall alongside the bed, our feet overhanging on the opposite side.
He still didn’t say anything so I continued. “The first time I wore that dress it made me tremble a bit inside too. It feels really nice wearing it, doesn’t it?”
He turned to me silently and nodded quietly and I took his hand in mine.
“What if your friends didn’t know it was you at the party? Would you like to wear it then?”
“What do you mean?”
“Come with me and my friends instead. I’ll introduce you to them as my cousin or something. I think you could definitely pass as a real girl.”
“I dunno, sis.”
“Remember when we used to play dress up when you were little?”
He smiled. “Yeah. You had that old bridesmaid’s dress you used to make me wear. And you used to pretend to be a knight, and come to res-cue me.”
“I don’t know about making you wear it. It was always you begging to be the princess.” I grinned and he punched me in the arm. “Anyway. Mum’s away with Derek tomorrow for a week. Why don’t you let me try - we’ll get you dressed, put some make up on you and stuff. We’ve a week before the party. If you’re happy we’ve got time to work on mannerisms, getting your voice right, getting you walking like a girl, that kind of thing. And if you’re not we can just stop and forget the whole thing.”

2

Mum and Derek left for their holiday as planned the following day.
“You’re the oldest, Ellie, so you’re in charge” she said, as she packed her suitcases into the boot. Mark had grumbled, of course.
As their car turned the corner at the end of the street I turned to him. “So. Are you still up for what we talked about yesterday?”
He nodded shyly.
“Well then. You heard mum. Go and jump in the bath. Use my shampoo on that greasy mess on top of your head. Conditioner too. I’ll be up in a few minutes to see how you’re getting on.”

Mum was a hairdresser. Not that you’d have known it from the bird’s nest of a hair-do that belonged to her son. But I’d helped her out in the sa-lon on more than a few occasions and I thought if I could get his hair looking ok, everything else would follow. He complained of course when I suggested trimming it, but I told him it would be reversible and I sensed that he was more intrigued about how he’d pass as a girl than he was concerned about passing as a heavy metal fan when he reverted to being a boy. Parted in the middle, it was just over shoulder length, which was perfect for what I had in mind. Setting about it with scissors and comb, and then dryer and straighteners, and then finally back-combing it with loads of hairspray it took me a couple of hours to make it into a more than passable stacked bob, curled under at the ends so it framed his face, and shorter at the back but with more volume so it sat higher on his head. I’d given him a short robe to wear whilst I worked and by the time I’d finished he was already starting to look quite cute.

So it turns out there’s no textbook titled ‘Turn Your Brother into a Girl in Five Days’, which is a shame, because it would have been really handy. In terms of looks I knew he stood a pretty good chance of passing, and with his hair and make up done I could have taken a photo and 99 out of 100 people would have said it was a girl. The tricky bit was once he started moving and talking. We decided we’d go all in down the method acting route. He’d stay in character 24/7 for the rest of the week. To make him commit I did his nails - full on extensions that I’d learnt how to do from working in mum’s salon, lacquered pink. We spent hours watching films we thought would help like Tootsie and Priscilla, and even My Fair Lady. And we also looked at some weird and wonderful sites on the internet as well. It was a bizarre week - as though normal reality had been suspended. We didn’t see or speak to anyone else for four days. We used so much hairspray experimenting with different styles I swear it felt like I was hallucinating half the time. But we laughed almost non-stop. One day he was getting dressed and wearing a slip, and it fell to his an-kles and he bent down to lift it up again and said that the problem was a loose elastic. And I just started giggling. And he asked what the matter was and I told him that could be his drag name - Lucy Lastic. And that started him giggling as well and we were helpless, rolling on the floor for about half an hour.

The day before the ball I nipped out in mum’s car to get a few things we’d need before she got back. I tried to persuade Mark to go with me dressed as Lucy as practice but he wouldn’t so I left him at home. When I got back I parked up opposite our house and realised I’d forgotten to get something to eat for tea that night. So I phoned our local chippy and ordered a couple of pizzas to be delivered. And then I had a wicked idea. The guy that usually did the deliveries was in my year at school- Gary, his name was - my friend Patsy had gone out with him for a while the previous year. I waited until I saw him get to the end of our street with the food and then rang Mark’s phone - “Hey Mark - I’ve forgotten my key - can you let me in when I knock?”. He answered the door wearing my short pink satin dressing gown. He’d obviously been taking ad-vantage of my absence to play around with his feminine side because his hair was different to how I’d done it - he’d mussed it up into a full head of loose shoulder length curls and then - bless him - tied a ribbon through it that matched the dressing gown. He looked adorable - even from the other side of the street his long legs, exposed from mid thigh, would have been spectacular had they not ended in his ‘Liverpool FC’ woolly slippers. His face was a picture - the initial shock at seeing it wasn’t me at the door was followed by a lightning fast shift into Lucy mode. He took the pizza and went to close the door but Gary kept talking so he couldn’t get away. That happened a couple more times until eventually Gary made his way back down the drive, a beaming smile on his face. I ducked below the car window so he wouldn’t see me and waited until he disappeared from view before letting myself in. I was helpless with laughter. Mark was waiting for me, hands on hips.
“So I suppose you think that’s funny then?”
“Oh, brother! Your face when you opened the door and saw it wasn’t me!”
“And what if he’d known it was me? Mark? Your brother, all dressed up like that?”
“Relax. It would be fine - he’s a cool guy. I know him from school.”
“Hmmph.” He frowned. Despite everything, he had remained in character as Lucy. He folded his arms, and his breasts, that we’d created using balloons filled with flour and water paste, shifted upwards, straining against the satin of his gown. His pouting lips, perfectly outlined in a creamy pink lipstick.
“What did he say to you anyway?”
He paused for a moment, as though wondering whether he should tell me or not, then looked up at me sheepishly from under his mascara-clad lashes. “He asked me if I was going to the ball tomorrow.”
I shrieked in laughter “Lucy’s got an admirer! Lucy’s got an admirer!” I sang.
He lifted a leg and removed one of his slippers and batted me over the head with it, and we fell onto the sofa, giggling.

3

So maybe you’re reading this and thinking “Oh my God, what an understanding sister you are!” And maybe if you’re trans, you’re thinking “I wish my sister/brother/mum/dad/partner had been half as understanding when I’d been in Mark’s situation.” And maybe I had been - for most of that week at least. I think I knew deep down that there was more to it than Mark just liking dressing up - the way he acted as a girl; the way he behaved when he was dressed up. But the fact is that the day before the ball Tommy Wainwright, the boy in my history class that I’d fancied for about half the year, texted me to ask if I was going, and from that point onwards any thoughts about my little brother possibly wanting to be my little sister paled into the background.
When, on the evening of the ball, he sat next to me at my dresser, doing his own make-up; as natural as you like; I was thinking only of Tommy.
When he slipped into the dress, and pulled the opera gloves over his elbows, and arranged the jewelled headband around his cute-as-a-pixie bob hairstyle, looking to all the world like he’d stepped straight off the set of ‘The Great Gatsby’ I might have said something about how good he looked, but my mind was with Tommy.
And when he stepped out of the taxi, greeting my friends with hugs and squeals of excitement at their outfits, as though he’d known them for years, I was already scanning the crowd to see if Tommy had arrived.

It was only when I saw him interacting with my friends as ‘my cousin Lucy’ that it finally dawned on me just how comfortable he was in his role. The Kate Bush song ‘Running Up That Hill’ was booming through the speakers and my friend Sadie had turned to him excitedly.
“Oh my God! This is like my favourite song at the moment!”
“Oh my God! Mine too! The whole album is totally amazing.”
“And Kate Bush is like the coolest woman ever.”
“Totally. The way she writes all her own stuff. And dresses how she does. Like she’s just being true to her own creativity, and not just doing it to look sexy for boys…and I love her hair. When she started out, and she had it in like that kind of crimped style. And she was always photo-graphed with it backlit, and it looked like a big mane or something. You should try yours like that Sadie - it would totally suit you.”
I’d stopped listening to the conversation I’d been a part of a minute ago. All I could think of was “Who are you and what have you done with my brother?” Instantly those thoughts I’d been having about Mark wanting to be a girl - that hadn’t quite formed consciously before - were now clear. But then Tommy appeared and all thoughts of my brother vanished from my head. Lucy was still chatting away with Sadie and barely no-ticed when I made my excuses. Me and Tommy had an amazing night. But that’s our business and this story is Lucy’s so I’m not going to go into any details!

The sun was already up when I got home the next morning. I tiptoed through the house and up the stairs, and poked my nose around the door of my brother’s room to see if he was in. A body shaped lump below the duvet confirmed he was, and I took to my bed, relieved that he’d made it home ok.

It was well into the afternoon by the time I got up. Mum and Derek had come back from their trip, and I could hear them chatting to Mark downstairs. I pulled my dressing gown on and joined them.
“So I hear you had a good night then, at the ball” My mum gave me a big hug when I appeared in the kitchen, where they were stood around the table whilst the kettle boiled.
“What?…” I glanced at Mark. His hair was a greasy mess and he was wearing a ‘Metallica’ t-shirt and a pair of jeans that might have jumped into the washing machine by themselves if he hadn’t been wearing them. It was as if the presence of Lucy this week had all been a figment of my imagination.. “Oh, yeah. Great night, thanks.”

Afterwards, I meant to get him on his own to talk about Lucy, I really did. But that week was so busy, sorting things out for my trip. And then I was away for two months, and only came home for a few days before starting uni. I’d been offered a place at Liverpool to study English, and even though we lived about half an hour away by bus I’d managed to persuade mum to let me stay in halls so I could make some new friends. And with all the excitement of that, I confess I barely thought of Lucy at all until one day in late November when I bumped into Sadie in the student union.

When I’d said my goodbyes to go travelling she’d told me she was planning to go to London to study fashion. But it had turned out that she didn’t get in, but had instead taken up a place at the School of Art here in Liverpool to study theatrical costume design. She’d not been too hap-py at first with the thought of having to stay in Liverpool, but like me, she’d managed to move out from home, and was sharing a flat with some other art students not far from the college. We must have spent a couple of hours chatting away over a coffee, catching up about the last few months. And then, just as we were about to say our goodbyes, she said it.
“So how’s Lucy getting on?”
I looked at her, to try to gauge if she knew something but wasn’t giving it away. But her expression was blank.
I took a breath. “Listen. There’s something you should know about Lucy.”
“I know.”
“You know?”
She grinned.
We ordered another coffee and she told me the story of what had happened four months ago at the School Leavers’ Ball.