III. First Training
Suzanne took him up the curved staircase leading from the entrance hall to the
private apartments.
"These will be your rooms," she explained. He looked around and was a little
disturbed. He had expected his room to be an adequate place for him to study. A
bed, a closet, a few chairs and a desk for his work were all he had expected and
desired. But here was a suite fit for a queen... yes, definitely not for a king,
for the whole atmosphere radiated femininity.
"Madame kindly asks you to put up with these rooms. This was her suite formerly,
but after the death of her husband she has redecorated and moved into the master
suite. Unfortunately, there was no time to redecorate this part of the house
before you came. And Madame thought, maybe you like it this way and anyhow, you
can now choose for yourself what you want."
He looked around and was fascinated by the wealth and taste the rooms showed.
There was a sitting room in the style of the French Empire and a bedroom in the
style of Louis XVI with beautiful furniture, not overloaded, but just right to
feel comfortable. Big chandeliers with candles lighted the rooms, but there were
electric lights on the walls. He had never before seen electric lights. Some
very good paintings hung on the walls and a few goblins and again, a lot of
mirrors.
Suzanne led him from the bedroom into a smaller room, where the walls were lined
with closets.
"This is your dressing room and right here is the bathroom. I shall help you to
undress and give you a nice, warm bath. That will refresh you. It must have been
a long day for you, with all that travelling."
"Yes, please, get me out of this cape. I want to be able to use my hands again.
I think I can manage the rest myself... you do not have to help me. Say, is
there nobody around who can lend me some male clothes? I do not really want to
go to the opera dressed as a girl."
"First of all, I am obeying Madame's orders and she told me to undress you and
bathe you and this is what I am going to do. Secondly, there really is no male
person here who would have your stature and whose clothes would fit you. There
is only the coachman and the gardener, and both are much bigger than you. And
thirdly, Madame would never even dream of taking you to her box at the opera in
clothes borrowed from anybody else, much less her servants. You would have to
have a perfectly fitting tail-coat and all the trimmings that go with it: stiff
front shirt, white tie, black patent leather shoes, top hat, and all. Do you
really believe a gardener or coachman would have that? And one thing more. I
want to make things easy for you and for me, so you'd better promise me now,
before I release you, that you will obey me in everything until I hand you over
to Madame. Otherwise, I would have to summon help and call the cook and the
parlor-maid, or even the coachman and gardener. And you do not want them to know
your secret... or do you?"
"If I really have to go through this, I promise you to do exactly what you say.
I shall put things right tomorrow with my aunt."
"All right, I'll take your word for it." And she undressed him in a matter of
minutes. He felt incredibly relieved when she took off his corset.
"Do I have to wear this again tonight?" he asked fearfully.
"Oh, no, you don't. But you will wear a different one, one that goes with the
evening gown which you are going to wear."
"Is it as tight as this one?"
"I'm afraid so, because most of the gowns and dresses were made for the same
waist size... all but a few, which are about half an inch or even an inch
smaller, but you do not have to wear one of those tonight, if you do not wish
to. But your waist has already adjusted itself very nicely and if we do not wait
too long, it will not be hard to lace you into the other corset, especially
after a warm bath, which relaxes and softens the body."
"Do I really have to go to the opera? Why, I could stay here comfortably and
just wait until I get my own clothes from my trunk tomorrow."
"I would not even think of it, if I were you. Madame has set her mind on taking
you to the opera tonight and believe me, she is going to do it. If she has
decided that this is what she wants, you had better not try to dissuade her. I
have known her for some time now. Not even her late husband could change her
mind once she had made it up, and he was a tough one."
"Well, all right then... let's get it over with." Jean-Marie was in and out of
the bathtub in a few minutes. Suzanne then dried him and massaged him with an
aromatic oil, that smelled like the entire treasures of Arabia.
"It not only smells good, it gives you a softer skin and is good for the corset
marks. Now for the corset. Step over here, please. We'll just use this lacing
bar here. You do not wear a vest under this corset, as your gown will leave your
shoulders bare, so it is necessary to distribute the body tissues correctly
before the lacing, otherwise the skin will all be drawn to the back and it will
hurt."
She led him to a kind of trapeze, hanging down from the ceiling, and made him
hold on to it. He tried to protest when she strapped his wrists to it with soft
leather straps, but he was immediately silenced.
"You promised to behave didn't you?"
A moment later, he heard a whirring sound and felt the trapeze rise.
"Hey, stop this!" he cried out, but Suzanne stopped the mechanism only when the
trapeze was so high that he had to stand on tip- toes. Then she proceeded to put
the corset around him. He noticed that it was already laced rather tightly in
the back, so Suzanne had some difficulty in closing the front hooks, but after
some kneading here and there, she succeeded.
He saw in the mirror on the wall that he already had a very slim waist this way,
but she was not content and started to close the gap in the back.
"You see, first I drew the skin to the front, now it is being drawn back again
to its original position... and so it won't hurt you unnecessarily. This lacing
bar was used by Madame very often when she went out with her husband, and I know
it is a big help."
After going over the laces again with a hook and tightening them so that only
about half an inch of the gap remained, she was content. He, however, felt again
like he was being cut in half. When she finally let him down a bit so that he
could stand on his feet again, he was determined to undo the laces the moment he
had the use of his hands again... promise or no promise. But she must have
sensed his rebellion, for she did not loosen the straps. Instead, she fastened
the strap that went under his body and flattened his maleness, though not
without giving him little caresses here and there while doing it.
He could not understand why, but since he had first worn that dressing gown in
the store of Madame Heloise, he was in a constant state of arousal, which had
only subsided a little bit in the warm water, but reappeared immediately
afterwards when Suzanne had begun to lace the corset on him. He was really
ashamed of it, as you did not show this in the presence of a girl, but he had no
control over it and the best thing, he thought, was to ignore it. Suzanne had
done the same up to this moment and, actually, it was over before one could
mention it: then the offensive sight had disappeared.
When he looked into the mirror, he saw that the lacing with his arms raised high
had caused his twin mounds (which he preferred to think of as his pectoral
muscles) to be pushed up and in from the sides, which shaped them into a quite
realistic bosom, befitting a young girl with a pretty cleavage. Next came a pair
of black open- worked stockings made of the finest silk, which reached high on
his thighs and were fastened to the corset with long garters.
Suzanne then made him step into two petticoats, one satin, one taffeta. The
satin one again was very tight around his legs, as was the one he had worn
before, while the taffeta one had several rows of ruffles going down the
backside, giving it additional fullness. As he was again not allowed to wear
drawers, the petticoats slithered excitingly over his bare backside.
Suzanne brought the dress and made him step into it. She cautiously pulled it up
until she could fasten the hooks of the waistband. Finally, she smoothed the
full skirt down carefully over his hips.
Only then did she release him from the lacing bar. With the petticoats and now
with the gown covering the knots of the corset laces, he knew he had no chance
of undoing them. So he gave in, and docilely put his arms into the short puffed
sleeves and let her fasten all of the hooks to the top. The gown was of rustling
white silk brocade with silver threads woven into the material. In front and
over the hips, it followed the lines of his body closely, but opened in the back
from the hips down to end in a large train. On any girl, he would have found it
magnificent.
Suzanne then led him to a chair and made him sit down. She showed him how to
gather his skirts and how not to sit on the ruffles, which ran down the back of
the gown. Then she put little high heeled slippers she called them "court shoes"
on him, made of the same heavy brocade material as the gown. After taking care
of his feet, she turned to his hands and arms and worked a pair of white glace
kid gloves on them, buttoning them tightly at the wrists. The buttons were so
small and the fingers of the gloves so tight that he was sure he could never
undo them by himself. The gloves reached almost to his shoulders.
"Now for the make-up. We can do a little more than this afternoon, now that it
is dark and the lights are low."
She proceeded with the cosmetics like a true professional, and in a few minutes
he saw an entirely new face in the mirror. It was the face of a very pretty
girl, tastefully made up to accentuate her best points. He did not object to
this, because he hoped that if his face was disguised well enough, nobody he met
tonight would later recognize him when he became a boy again. And anyway, if he
had to be a girl tonight, he might as well be a pretty one.
He already thought of himself as a girl, he suddenly realized. But it was the
easiest way to cope with the situation. Tonight he would be a girl, and he made
up his mind there and then, to make the most of it and enjoy himself as a girl
as best as he could. He looked at himself and was quite content with his
reflection in the mirror. He looked like a young lady coming from a very wealthy
family, upon whom no luxury was spared. The dress let the top of his pretty
round breasts, which the corset had created, bare, and showed the little valley
between them. He could almost not believe that they were his own. Somehow he was
ashamed of them, but then he liked the way they fit so perfectly into the entire
picture.
Well, he had no jewels, he thought, when just at that moment Suzanne came to him
and fastened a rather tight choker necklace around his neck consisting of a net
of pearls and diamonds about three inches wide, which again forced him to keep
his chin high, and carry himself proudly. Then she fastened wide, white-gold,
diamond studded bracelets to each of his wrists, and finally a silver and
diamond tiara into his hair.
The mirror showed him an image of perfection, a vision, the girl of his dreams.
He could hardly turn away from the mirror. Suddenly, a pleasant shiver ran down
his spine and he knew that he would like being a girl tonight.
"Stop admiring yourself and come to me. You have to practice walking with the
train," said Suzanne, interrupting his thoughts.
She showed him how to handle his skirts and how to avoid getting caught in the
folds of the train. First, she made him walk up and down the length of the room,
turning around at each end. He almost fell at every turn, until she taught him
how to swing the train around with one foot to the back, before starting in the
new direction. She made him practice this for about ten minutes, until he got
the knack of it and did it automatically at every turn.
Then she showed him how to gather his skirts to avoid getting them caught in
obstacles, like chairs or doorways. He practiced walking up and down the bedroom
and the sitting-room, turning back and forth, walking around furniture without
getting the train caught in it, sitting down and getting up.
"If you have to walk down stairs or cross a street, you have to pick up your
train like this," and Suzanne showed him how to do it.
At first, he tried to simply bend down from the waist... as he was used to only
to detect that this was futile because the tight corset made it impossible. He
had to bend his knees and keep his body straight up, while reaching back down
with his left hand to pick up the skirts. In the beginning, he almost lost his
balance every time he tried, because the maneuver was not made easier by the
high heels he was perched on, but Suzanne was a dedicated coach, and did not
give up before he could do it quite gracefully in one, flowing and presumably
effortless motion.
Finally, Suzanne taught him how to curtsey elegantly. He had to gather his train
behind with one hand, put the left foot back, deeply bend the right knee and at
the same time put his right arm across his waist and lower his eyes.
It took about 15 minutes of intense training until Suzanne said "Well, this is
not enough for a reception at the court, but it may do for tonight."
His legs, however, felt like they would fold up any second. He was completely
exhausted and simply slumped into one of the easy- chairs when Suzanne made him
get up again.
"No time for sitting down now; later you will sit most of the time anyhow. Let
us go downstairs now. Madame will be waiting for you."
When he came down the long staircase, Aunt Margaret stood watching him
intensely. He walked down slowly, holding his skirts up in front a little with
one hand and his head high.
"You really look marvelous, and you walk like a real lady. I must compliment
you: you are a natural for these clothes," Aunt Margaret greeted him as he
reached her.
"Here, take this purse. It contains all the little things a lady might need
during a night out."
She moved closer and sniffed at his bare shoulders.
"Suzanne has forgotten the perfume. But let's go now... there is some in your
purse and we can use it while we are in the carriage. Put this cape over your
shoulders," and she handed him a marvelous white fur cape.
"You don't have to be suspicious, this one you just put around your shoulders,
no inner sleeves in this one," Aunt Margaret laughed as she saw his doubting
glance and she fastened it around him and closed the snap-hooks in front. It
came down to his knees just where the train started to open in the back. As he
walked out, he threw a sideways glance at a mirror in the hall and could not
help but admire the reflection he saw.
