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THE SWEET ACADEMY (Complete text of the 3-part story.) By Lisa Lovelace Part 1 On my fifteenth birthday, my great-grandmother, Nana, dressed me in one of her favorite old frocks, one she'd carefully preserved from way back when she was a girl. It was a pink silk taffeta dress with a white Peter Pan collar, short cap sleeves, a snug bodice with a self-belt, and a full skirt that fell to my knees. Under it I wore old-fashioned nylon panties, a bullet bra, a garter belt, nylon stockings, a full slip, two crinoline petticoats and a pair of white pumps with two-inch heels. I loved the feeling of the dress hugging me above the waist and the skirt billowing out over my petticoats, rustling and swishing around my legs. I loved it... even though I was a boy. A boy named Lee. Lee Little. The last name fit. I was a preemie and sickly as an infant. By the time I entered high school I was a teenage runt, five foot two and barely a hundred pounds. I had no facial or body hair and my voice hadn't changed. I almost looked more like a girl than a boy, with a narrow jaw, button nose, high cheekbones, long, slender neck, slim- waisted body and soft, weak limbs. My male parts were still child-sized. The doctor told me some boys just reached puberty later than others, and I was very late. The way Nana made me look didn't help. She took me to her salon for haircuts and had them style my thick blonde hair in a unisex bob - she called it unisex, anyway, but it framed my face in a way that looked girly to me. Sometimes I emerged with a coat of clear polish on my fingernails. She dressed me for school in tight, stretchy jeans with embroidered pockets, brightly colored V-necked tees a size too small, and girls' white canvas tennies. Once a week I had to wear white jeans, and woe unto me if I got them dirty. Inevitably, other boys at school started calling me fag, sissy, queer, tranny and other nasty names. One bully's girlfriend said I should be called Lisa instead of Lee, and the name stuck. Even my few friends started calling me Lisa at school. I once started to cry while telling one of them to stop calling me that, and after that it was hopeless. Whenever there wasn't a teacher around, some kid would call out "Liiiiisa!" and pretend to burst into tears, and everyone would laugh. Between classes, girls would drag me into their bathroom and put lipstick on me, and if I wiped it off, they'd do it to me again before my next class. It all started after the day Nana discovered that I liked wearing girls' clothes. My boyhood ended that day, to be replaced by something else. ~ ~ ~ It was six years ago. I was nine and was living with Nana in her big, old-fashioned house in White Plains. She was all I had by way of family. Nana told me my dad got in trouble after a bad business deal, flew to Mexico with my mother, and hadn't been seen or heard from since. I no longer missed them. It was quiet and peaceful at Nana's house. No one screamed or shouted at anyone. No one got drunk and broke stuff. One dark, rainy day, Nana was taking her afternoon nap, and I was bored. I found myself eyeing the shadowy stairway at the end of the hall that led up to the attic. I'd never been up there, so I decided to explore. The door at the top of the stairs creaked open to reveal a big, airy room full of old furniture, boxes and random bric-a-brac. The only open space was across the floor in front of a large, old-fashioned wooden wardrobe and a matching chest of drawers. I opened the wardrobe to see if there was anything inside, and found three large garment bags hanging from a rod. On the floor of the wardrobe were a dozen neatly stacked shoeboxes. Lifting a lid, I saw a pair of women's shoes, black and shiny with skinny heels, and wondered what was in the garment bags. I pulled one of the bags out of the wardrobe, laid it on top of the chest of drawers, and unzipped it. Inside I found at least a dozen women's dresses on hangers. Not dresses like women wear now, but dresses like in old movies and TV shows, a mix of polished cotton and silky prints with cute little collars, slender bodices and full skirts. I wondered whose clothes they were. Probably Nana's. They looked too small for Nana's longtime companion, Aunt Rosalind, who'd passed away a few years ago. I was too young to have known her well - she didn't seem to like boys very much - but I remember a tall, athletic woman who always wore trousers, not dresses like these. In the chest of drawers, I found old-fashioned ladies' lingerie, neatly folded and wrapped in pink tissue paper: panties, bras, camisoles, girdles, garter belts, stockings, slips and petticoats. They appeared to be in perfect condition, and I wondered how old they were. A lower drawer held various types of rather forbidding foundation garments - corsets and other things I didn't know the names of. I ran my fingers over the soft fabric of a slip and felt my nerves throb. It was so pretty and soft that I wanted to feel it on my body. I didn't know why. All I knew was that something inside me made me want to put on the slip. I stripped off my clothes and let the slip slide down over my head. I felt a rush of emotion, a mixture of pleasure, shame and fear. I knew it was totally wrong for a boy to wear a woman's slip, but my skin tingled with delight. In another drawer I found panties, the big, fancy kind that Nana still wore, not the tiny slinky things that I saw in her magazines. I found a pink pair with lace panels on the side and a tiny bow at the waist, slid them up my legs and pulled them into place. They were quite loose but felt lovely, so much nicer than boys' underwear. For some reason, they made my little weenie get stiff. I rubbed it through the panties and slip, and the feeling of the fabrics sliding over each other made me stiffer. My nine-year-old body didn't know how to handle this sense of pleasure and somehow felt it was wrong, so I stopped. Instead, I lifted the topmost dress out of the garment bag, a pretty pink and maroon floral print in rayon or some similar fabric. Like the slip and panties, it would be too big for me, but so what, and why not? I could dress up as Nana, the way little girls played dress-up in their mother's clothes. The thought thrilled me. I was alone, Nana was napping, and even if she woke up, there was no reason for her to climb two flights of stairs to catch me up here. I drew the dress over my head. It was probably knee-length on a woman, but it hung to my calves. I managed to reach behind me and zip it up. I twisted my hips to make the skirt and slip swish around me, and spun on one toe to make it bell out. I loved the feeling of wearing a dress, yet at the same time felt deeply ashamed. Boys didn't wear dresses! It was like a law of nature. What was wrong with me? I didn't put on a complete girl's outfit. The drawers included bras and stockings and girdles and who knew what else, but I didn't bother. What I had on was enough for now. What a difference a dress made! The clothes were from a time when girls' clothes were completely different from boys', almost as if the sexes were different species, and I marveled at how they felt on my body. It made me want to... well, I couldn't actually be a girl, but... I peeked in the shoeboxes and found a pair in shiny black patent leather with pointy toes and low heels. They were a couple of sizes too large for my little feet, but I could walk clumsily in them, like a girl in Mommy's high heels. There was a mirror inside one of the doors of the wardrobe. I checked myself out. My hair was too short, and I wasn't wearing any makeup or stockings, but I looked like a girl anyway, and I was cute! I twisted and turned and smiled in the mirror, marveling at the feeling of wearing panties and a slip and a dress. I didn't want to take them off. I heard footsteps on the stairs. Oh my God. Nana was awake! I froze. Here I was, a boy dressed in what were probably her old clothes, and she was about to see me in them. I had no time to undress, nowhere to hide. Nana reached the top of the stairs, wheezing from the effort, and saw me. "I was looking for - oh, my goodness! Don't you look pretty!" I wanted to vanish. "I'm sorry, Nana! I - I..." She smiled. "I remember that dress! I wore it when I was sixteen. In fact, I was wearing it the first time a boy kissed me! What a surprise to see it again! Doesn't it feel nice?" "I'm so sorry, Nana! I'll go get changed!" "Oh, don't! You're so cute, all dressed up like a girl in Mommy's clothes! How often do you dress up?" "This is my first time, Nana, honest!" I said. "I've never been up here before. I didn't even know these clothes were here." She smiled. "So you found them and just had to put them on, and oh, my goodness! Aren't you just a doll!" I wanted to cry. "Can't I put on boy's clothes?" "No! Leave on what you're wearing. You look lovely. The dress is a bit big, but so pretty on you." A pause. "Lee, tell me, do you feel like a boy inside, a boy who maybe likes to dress like a girl, or do you feel like a girl stuck in a boy's body?" She didn't sound angry. I tried to calm down and think. "I guess I feel like a boy, Nana. I don't know to feel like a girl. But I like the way these clothes feel." I expected her to laugh or make fun of me, but she didn't. "Well," she said. "This changes things. How would you like to completely dress up as a girl? I mean, just for fun! I saved my old dresses up here for years, and there might be a girl's dress or two in the garment bags." An hour later, I looked at myself in the mirror. I now wore a dress only slightly too large for me, a frilly little yellow party dress for a ten- or twelve-year-old girl. It was knee- length on me. Made of some light, crisp fabric, it had short, puffy sleeves, a lacy collar, a sash that tied in back and a built-in petticoat. Under it I wore the same panties and slip, and added a lace-trimmed bra and another petticoat. Nana showed me how to tighten the straps so that the undies fit better, and stuffed my bra cups with silk scarves. She also showed me how to put on a garter belt and stockings and strapped a pair of white sandals to my feet. "There! Aren't you pretty?" Nana said. "Now let's go downstairs to my vanity and do your face. Girls your age usually don't wear makeup, but we'll make an exception just this once." We went to her room, where she told me to take off my dress so that we wouldn't get makeup on it. She started working on my face. She explained what she was doing as she went along, but I couldn't take it all in at once. Foundation, powder, eyebrow pencil, eye liner, mascara, eye shadow, blush, lip liner, lipstick, lip gloss... why did women put up with all this? "And now your hair," Nana said. She parted my hair in the center. It was just long enough to be put into short pigtails, which she tied off with yellow ribbons. When she was done, she helped me back into the dress, fluffed the skirt over the petticoat and let me look at myself in the mirror. I was stunned. I instantly understood why women put up with all this. The makeup made me look like an eighteen-year-old girl wearing a young girl's party dress - kind of pervy, but really cute. I held out my skirts and swished them back and forth, loving how they looked and felt. "Can you curtsy, child?" Nana said. She showed me how. I tried to copy her. "Very nice! You make a lovely girl. Thank you for letting me dress you up. Now let's go downstairs and talk." "Can I change into my boys' clothes?" "No. You're too cute in that dress." She led me to the kitchen. I sat, remembering to smooth my skirts under me the way girls did. She served tea, and looked at me over her steaming cup. "Lee, do you want to wear girl's clothes all the time?" I flushed. "No! If I wore this to school, they'd beat me up." "You could wear boy's clothes to school. But what if you always wore dresses at home?" "Why would I do that, Nana?" "Because girls' clothes are so much nicer than boys' clothes. Isn't that reason enough? You make a very pretty girl, and I'd love to see the beauty you could bring to our lives." Tempting... but too strange, too embarrassing. "Could we just try it for a few days to see what it's like?" "How about a week? Curtsy if you agree." I gave my wobbly assent. "We'll need a girl's name for you," she said. "They call you Lisa at school, right?" I pouted. "Can't I have a different name? I hate Lisa." "Nonsense. It's cute, and it sounds like your classmates are already used to it. When you're in girl's clothes, you are Lisa." My transformation into Lisa started the next Saturday morning. Nana started by handing me lace-trimmed panties, a garter belt and stockings, a training bra and a full-length slip. When I had those on, she pulled a knee-length petticoat up to my waist, and then lifted a short-sleeved black dress over my head and tugged it down over me until its full skirt floated smoothly over the petticoat. I loved the feeling, so smooth and slippery and swishy. To finish me off, she tied a frilly white apron around me with a big bow that hung down over my bottom - cute, I suppose, but hardly dignified - and slid my feet into a pair of shiny black low-heeled girls' shoes that fit me perfectly. After giving me a few strokes with a hairbrush and a touch of pink lipstick, she turned me around to face the mirror. I looked like a pretty housemaid in a rather plain uniform. A very pretty housemaid, despite my short hair and lack of eye makeup, nail polish and jewelry. I curtsied in the mirror, and practiced it a few times in my new dress. Nana smiled. "Very pretty, Miss Audrey. Now, let's get you started on the housework." "Audrey?" I asked, puzzled. "Not Lisa?" "Sorry, I was just thinking you remind me of a movie star when I was young. Do an image search for her sometime. Audrey Hepburn." That afternoon, when I finished my chores, Nana told me to change back into the yellow party dress. She put the apron on me again when it was time to make dinner, asked me to make the rice, and told me how. It was easy. Once the rice was simmering, I helped her chop vegetables and then set the table for the two of us. Over dinner, she praised me for being her good little helper in the kitchen, and said she was happy to have Lisa around instead of Lee. I wasn't sure what to think about that. I was proud to have pleased her, but it also made me ashamed to think that she liked me better in skirts than in trousers. I was a boy, not a girl, but I'd found I liked dressing and being treated as a girl - and Nana was encouraging it. I wanted to be delicate and pretty, not big and strong. Now I would get my chance to see what it was like... well... not to actually be a girl, because I couldn't do that, but to pretend to be a girl, and to be as convincing as possible. Maybe that's why Nana had me do the dishes and clean up after dinner. Too tired to watch TV, I changed into a pale blue nylon baby-doll nightgown and bloomers that I found laid out on my bed, found Nana in her boudoir, gave her a kiss and curtsy, and went to bed. My brain was buzzing with thoughts of what it would be like to dress as a girl, and it took me a long time to fall asleep. Nana made me wear the same clothes on Sunday - the black dress and apron in the morning, the yellow party dress in the afternoon and evening - and added a white corset. She laced it up tightly enough to be uncomfortable, and I found it made my skimpy bosom and bottom stick out in a very feminine posture. We spent the afternoon going through the remaining garment bags and found a vintage housewife's day dress in a floral cotton print, with a lace collar, cap sleeves and a full skirt, only one size too large for me. With a petticoat under it and an apron over it, the dress made me look very domestic. We decided I could wear that after school instead of the yellow party dress, and save the yellow dress for special occasions. On Monday, she let me wear boys' clothes to school, but made me strip and change into girls' underwear and my day dress as soon as I got home. I couldn't see my friends after school for obvious reasons, so Nana made me do chores around the house. On Wednesday, she made me start wearing girls' panties under my boys' clothes at school. When I asked her not to, she threatened to add a camisole, so I had to back down. To avoid exposure, I started changing for gym class in a toilet stall, hoping no one would notice and take a peek. By the end of the week, I was a nervous wreck, but Nana declared herself satisfied with the results. I somehow hadn't been discovered at school, and she said I was much better behaved at home while in dresses. She decided that I would wear girls' underwear all the time from then on, and dresses whenever I wasn't at school. At the same time, she said I could hang out with friends at their houses, as long as I went there directly after school. When I came home afterwards, I had to change into a dress as usual, and nightwear later. Over time I got used to it. I loved wearing lingerie, and took consolation from knowing that when dressed, I looked like a very pretty girl, not a boy in drag. Nana frequently complimented me on my looks and took me on shopping trips to fill out my girly wardrobe. I liked looking pretty and I liked getting new things to wear, and resented having to change into boys' clothes to go to school. Which is why, six years later, on my fifteenth birthday, Nana could tell me to put on that lovely pink silk frock and petticoats, and I would happily do so. ~ ~ ~ I was wearing the pink frock when I opened my presents. Most of the boxes were the size and shape that said clothes. I hoped they weren't for boys. I opened the first box and unwrapped a beautiful knife-pleated skirt in a light wool-silk blend, a tartan of royal blue and black stripes shot through with threads of pink and white. I loved it. The next box contained a white georgette blouse with ruffles at the placket, collar, puffy sleeves and hem. It was semi-sheer, and I would have to remember to wear a slip or camisole under it, unless I wanted everyone to ogle my bra or corset. When I opened the last box, I realized what Nana had given me: all the pieces of a rather racy schoolgirl's uniform. With the skirt and blouse came a white bra and panty set, a beautiful white full slip, lace- trimmed ankle socks, a pair of black patent Mary Janes and, last of all, a femininely tailored royal blue blazer with an embroidered crest on the left breast pocket. The crest said THE SWEET ACADEMY - 1869 in gold letters that circled a pink silhouette of a girl wearing a Victorian hoopskirt and carrying a parasol. I looked at Nana. "What's The Sweet Academy?" "First, let's dress you in your new uniform," she said, and proceeded to do so. I swung my hips to see the pleats of my skirt sway and dance. The blouse would have been a bit embarrassing if I hadn't worn the slip under it, but it fit perfectly, felt wonderfully girly, and somehow created the illusion that I had a bustline. Nana asked me to sit, and showed me how not to crush the pleats of my skirt. "I don't think public high school is the best place for you, dear," she said. "The principal called me the other day to let me know you're having a hard time. He said he was sorry, but it's difficult to stop bullying unless the victim stands up for himself. Which, my dear, I'm afraid you are not well equipped to do. It's not because of how I dress you. It's because of what you naturally are. A sissy." I smoothed my dress over my thighs, feeling small and weak and feminine. Tears started in my eyes. It was true. I was a sissy. I would be a total failure as a man - I couldn't even be a proper boy! I pictured myself trying to stand up to one of the boys at school and shuddered. He would beat me to a pulp. He would make me admit I was a sissy girl, and his girlfriend would make me put on one of her uniforms, and... "Well," said Nana, "I happen to know of a private school that might be good for you. It's called The Sweet Academy. It's only a few hours from here, near Albany. A boarding school." "You mean I would have to live there?" I said, instantly anxious. "I don't want to leave! I want to stay with you!" Nana laid her hand over mine. "Let's be realistic, honey. I won't be here forever. We need to plan for your future when I'm gone. The Sweet Academy is a private high school that teaches boys..." "Boys?" I shrieked. "I don't want to go to a boys' school!" "Shush! I was about to say... a school that teaches boys how to be girls." I caught my breath. Could there be such a place? "The Sweet Academy. Very select, only two hundred students. They've been turning boys into girls for more than a century and a half, and have it down to a science. You'll attend classes in your cute little schoolgirl's uniform and study the feminine arts and make new friends and live there year-round." She patted my hand. "The nice thing about The Sweet Academy, dear, is that it has a special program that finds positions for its students when they graduate. You won't have to look for a job. You'll have a place to live. You won't need to worry about the future. That's important, because I'll be moving into assisted living soon, and I'll be selling this house. Finding you a safe place in life is the best thing I can do for you, darling Lisa." "Oh, Nana!" I hugged her and cried and told her she would always live in my heart. She started crying, too, happy tears. She asked if I would agree to go to The Sweet Academy, and I said yes. I thought it would be wonderful to go to a school where all the boys dressed as girls, because then no one would be able to make fun of me for doing it. A month later, spring term finally ended at my public school and I was free for the summer. Nana put me in girls' clothes at once, and made me wear them all the time. She allowed me to schedule times when I could put on boys' clothes and go hang out at a friend's house, so long as I cleared it in advance with her and my friend's mother. It was awkward, and I ended up spending less time with my friends and more time dressed as a girl. Nana received a letter from The Sweet Academy saying that I had been accepted for the fall term, with a list of items I needed to bring: at least two complete school uniforms, a week's worth of underwear and lacy ankle socks, sleepwear, makeup and nail kits, moisturizers and other beauty supplies, brushes, curlers and other beauty tools, a portable hair dryer, leotards, tights and dance skirts in pink, black and white, and a girl's winter gear - coat, flowered wellies, scarf and mittens. Students were also required to have pierced ears, Nana's gift to me when I turned ten. I would have been a sophomore if I'd stayed in public school, but I was going to enter The Academy as a first-year student, repeating ninth grade. Nana said this would allow me to live there for all four years, and the school's curriculum was so different from public school that I would want to start from the beginning. She started giving me two vitamin pills a day. She told me The Sweet Academy sent them to all students to boost their immune systems before starting school, and that I would continue to take them at school. I started wearing my Sweet Academy uniform around the house, just to get used to it. It was comfortable and fun to wear, especially when my skirt swung prettily around my hips. The school's letter said I could bring two of my own outfits for the rare days when I didn't have to wear a uniform. Dresses or skirts and blouses only - no trousers, shorts, yoga pants, jeans or tees. I packed two vintage-looking dresses and a crinoline petticoat in addition to all my other gear. Nana warned me I would have to make a full court curtsy to a large audience the night I arrived. She wanted to show me how, but couldn't. I told her I'd watch YouTube instead, and learned how to do it. What a weird custom! Nana made me practice it in one of her long formal gowns until I could do it gracefully. Before I knew it, it was the weekend after Labor Day. I was to begin classes on Monday. My journey to becoming a Sweet Academy girl started on Saturday morning, when Nana took me to the salon for a complete makeover: a full body waxing (ouch!), a new, more feminine wedge cut with highlights, a facial, a mani/pedi and makeup. Afterwards, I stared at myself in the mirror. I was a pretty girl. Really pretty. I mean, gorgeous. Nana said so, and she was sparing with compliments. She said I looked innocent but inviting in a way that would make it difficult for both men and women to keep their hands off me. I didn't like the sound of that! My life was about to change completely, in ways I didn't understand, and I was afraid. The more I thought about it, the more panicked I felt. What if I couldn't do it? What if I flunked out? What if the other boys made fun of me even though they wore skirts, too? What if it was as bad as public school? What if, what if, what if? I knew it was silly to worry about problems that might never happen, but I couldn't help it. That afternoon, I loaded our luggage into the car, and Nana drove us north to Albany, where we shared a king-sized bed at a romantic little B&B. I wore a cute dress to dinner at a nice Italian restaurant nearby and my baby-doll nightgown to bed, just to get myself into a more feminine mood. On Sunday morning, I dressed in my schoolgirl uniform, as the instructions said. Nana drove into wooded country that I think was west of Albany. Following our GPS, we turned onto a gravel road marked only by a T.S.A. - PRIVATE - NO TRESPASSING sign, and drove through the woods for half a mile or so. The surrounding forest suddenly gave way to a large clearing filled by a compound surrounded by a ten-foot brick wall. I gasped at the sight. Inside the wall, an even taller hedge allowed only glimpses of the top stories and roofs of old-fashioned brick buildings. I wondered if the walls were to keep the world out or the students in. Maybe both. The road ended at big double gate in the wall. Only one side was open. Next to the gate, a bronze plaque set in the brickwork proclaimed THE SWEET ACADEMY - 1869 in beautiful old-fashioned lettering. I felt my heart pound. Six cars ahead of ours waited in line to pull up to the gate, where each disgorged a student and his - her - luggage. Pairs of girls in the school uniform loaded the luggage on carts and wheeled them inside. Other girls in Academy plaid skirts escorted arriving students through the gate. It all seemed very efficient. I didn't see any adults in charge. The line moved quickly, and suddenly I had to say goodbye to Nana. I started to cry. I couldn't do it. I desperately wanted to stay in the car and go home with her. I'd been feeling emotions more strongly of late, no doubt due to the stress of leaving my old life behind. By now it was clear to me that I was moving out of Nana's home for good, that I would live at the school for four years and then wherever they found a position for me. I didn't know if I would see her again. She tried to cheer me up by telling me that of course we would meet again. A girl in uniform opened my door and helped me out of my seat. Nana waved and drove away, and the girl took my hand and led me inside the gate. She asked if I was new, and pointed me toward a group of girls assembling by a large sundial. I joined them and looked around the place that would be my home for the next four years. It was a crisp, sunny September morning. The school grounds were spacious, maybe fifty or a hundred acres, with lots of old brick buildings and tree-lined quads and landscaped pathways between buildings. It looked exactly like the kind of old-fashioned college campus you might see in a movie, surrounded by a tall, thick hedge that cut off the outside world. Returning students headed for one of several three-story brick buildings that must have been dorms, but we new students gathered uncertainly by the sundial until a middle-aged woman wearing a Sweet Academy skirt and cardigan walked up to us. Something about her told me she was a biological woman, not a feminized male. "New students, follow me!" she shouted. We trailed her across the entrance courtyard toward one of the larger buildings. A clump of older girls stopped as we passed and made fun of us. One tall, thin girl gave us a wolf whistle, and a very pretty young lady called me a nice piece of ass and said she had first dibs on the slit, whatever that meant. Her peers jeered at her. The woman leading us called out, "Robinson! Unladylike language! You're six for a week, starting Monday. Tell your prefect." The girl grimaced and curtsied. "Yes, Headmistress." The other girls snickered at her discomfiture as they hurried off. So that woman was the Headmistress! I was pleased that she came to our defense, but wondered what six for a week meant. She led us up the steps of the large building, through a spacious foyer, and down a corridor to a large lecture hall, where she waited for us to file in and take seats. "Good morning, girls," she said in a booming voice. "I am your Headmistress, Miss Backstitch. Say, 'Good morning, Headmistress'." A ragged chorus replied, "Good morning, Headmistress." "We can do better than that, can't we, girls? Good morning, girls!" "Good morning, Headmistress!" "That's more like it! Welcome to The Sweet Academy, where you will learn to fulfill your feminine potential. Like any school, we have a few rules. "You are girls now. Refer to each other as she and her. Our teachers and staff are adults. If an adult is in the room, do not speak unless spoken to. If an adult gives you an order, curtsy and obey at once. If you don't obey at once, you'll be punished. If you don't curtsy, you'll be punished. We have two kinds of punishments here. One is painful and the other is embarrassing. You'll learn about both soon enough." The room fell silent. "We expect Academy girls to be quiet, polite, obedient and ladylike at all times. Running, shouting, fighting and any other form of boyish behavior will be punished. Any girl found with trousers, shorts or any form of male clothing will be punished. Any girl who refuses to wear any item of female clothing that she is given will be punished. Any girl who refuses to wear appropriate cosmetics and accessories will be punished. Always dress and groom yourself properly, girls! "I see that most of you are already wearing your lacy ankle socks. Very good, girls! But we're not doing as well on our pigtails, are we? As first-year girls, you must always wear lacy ankle socks and your hair must always be up in pigtails tied with ribbons, or you will be punished. Anyone not wearing ankle socks and pigtails is senior to you, and you must curtsy to them, or you will be punished. When in doubt, curtsy. You'll spend a lot of your first year curtsying, and you will learn to do it so gracefully that it adds to your beauty. Curtsying is good for girls like you. It teaches you to be feminine and submissive. It should give you a tiny thrill every time you do it." She wagged a finger at us. "A practical matter. All the restrooms here are for girls. There are no urinals." She waited for the nervous titters to die out. "Any student found standing up to urinate, or leaving the seat up afterwards, will be spanked and dressed as a baby girl in diapers and won't be allowed to use the toilet for a week. Don't make that mistake, girls! Always sit, and never forget to wipe afterwards, front to back." More titters. Miss Backstitch raised her voice. "Now then, girls! Tonight is The Sweet Academy Debutante Ball, where you will all make your social debut on campus. You have a busy day ahead of you! This morning, you will all have beauty treatments in one of the school's salons. After lunch, you will go to your room, change into your most formal white lingerie and hosiery, preferably including a corset, and wait until your hall is sent to the Wardrobe Room. There you will be dressed in a debutante's gown. You will not eat or drink after being dressed - we don't want spills on spotless white satin! "At seven o'clock, you will be formally presented to an audience of Sweet Academy supporters, parents and students. You will have to make your full court curtsy on the stage. I hope you've been practicing!" There were murmurs of dismay, but not from me. Thank goodness Nana had made me practice. "As you curtsy, two very important things will happen. First you will be Named. The Headmistress will introduce you to the audience by the girl's name you will use while you are a student here. You will forget any names that you might have used in the past, and will be punished if you ever mention them here." There were a few murmurs at this. She waited for silence. "Then you will be Jeweled, which means you will be assigned to one of our school's five sororities: Ruby, Amethyst, Emerald, Sapphire or Pearl. You will wear your Jewel as a pendant at all times, and starting tonight, you will live with the other girls in your Jewel. "You will sleep in your Jewel's dorm. There you will meet your roommate and your other Jewelmates and future BFFs. You will hang out in your Jewel's common room, eat at your Jewel's table in the dining hall, enjoy beauty treatments in your Jewel's salon, and reflect your Jewel's theme colors in your clothing and accessories. During the year, your Jewel will compete against other the Jewels in ladylike contests: baking, cooking, hairdressing, dressmaking, dancing, singing, embroidery and other feminine arts, and, at the end of the school year, Fashion Week at The Sweet Academy. "When all of you have been Named and Jeweled, you will make the Grand Promenade. Three times around the hall on the arm of your escort, so that everyone can see you and appreciate your beauty. If you don't have an escort, an older student will approach you. After the Grand Promenade, you will dance the Grand Waltz with your escort. Don't be surprised if someone cuts in on your partner during the waltz - it's encouraged, so that connoisseurs of youthful beauty in the audience can dance with as many of you as possible. "After the Grand Waltz, a DJ will play popular songs, including some of your generation's dreadful noise, and guests can ask you to dance, and other guests can cut in. If you don't want to dance with someone, say no, or return to your dorm. Guests are allowed to touch you outside your clothing and can give you one kiss, but that's all! Any form of genital contact with a guest is strictly forbidden and will be punished. At least none of you can get pregnant. Good luck, girls, and have a lovely evening." As it happened, the afternoon and evening went exactly as the Headmistress said they would. The whole thing seemed quaint, but tradition was tradition. All the other new students were dressing up in swathes of virgin white satin, so I had no reason not to, and in the end, I found the actual experience rather romantic. The Wardrobe Room held hundreds of white satin gowns on long racks. The staff were all students, but they managed to dress forty nervous new girls quickly and efficiently. We were allowed to choose one of four styles of dress, and I selected an A-line gown with a princess neckline and lacy cap sleeves. One of the girls checked the racks holding the style of dress I chose and quickly found my size. She grabbed a matching petticoat and a pair of white gloves and handed them to me. I wondered how the school could afford to have so many dresses, and learned only later that all the dresses and petticoats had been designed and sewn by students as part of their senior project, and that they came in only three sizes: misses 4, 6 and 8. I wondered if The Academy simply didn't admit larger girls - I couldn't remember seeing any. How could they get away with it in this day and age? I took my gown, petticoat and gloves into a dressing room, where a Wardrobe girl helped me into the petticoat and lowered the debutante gown over my head, careful not to let it touch my hairdo or makeup. I slid my arms into the sleeves and felt the heavy satin glide down my body. She zipped me up. I felt a thrill as the bodice and waistline tightened around my torso and made the skirt hang properly. I wiggled my fingers into the white gloves. The Wardrobe girl drew them up my arms and fastened the tiny pearl buttons at the wrist. I looked at myself in the mirror and caught my breath at the sight of the elegant young lady I had become. I was perfectly made up, but wore no jewelry, no hair ornaments, as I had not yet been Named or Jeweled. I looked virginal, an innocent girl on the brink of womanhood. Once petticoated, gowned and gloved, we left the Wardrobe Room and, carefully lifting our hems to avoid dirtying them, crossed the street to the rear entrance of one of the largest buildings on campus. We went in to find ourselves backstage in a large theater, where older girls wearing PREFECT badges lined us up in alphabetical order. We checked ourselves out in our compact mirrors, adjusting our dresses and hair and freshening up our lipstick and gloss. It was remarkable how quickly and easily The Sweet Academy had turned us from a crowd of boys in schoolgirl drag into an obedient line of girls in long white gowns and gloves, primping and preening and gossiping in whispers while waiting to make their formal curtsy at a debutante ball. The theater curtain rose. The Headmistress entered, followed by the Head Girls of the five Jewels, and walked up to the microphone. She welcomed the crowd and officially opened this year's Naming. One by one, girls walked onto the stage, made their best attempt at a court curtsy and were Named and Jeweled. When it was my turn, I gracefully dipped into my formal curtsy, bowing low and smoothly rising to my feet, to a scattering of applause. The Headmistress' voice boomed in the hall. "Miss Lisa Little." Oh, well. I didn't like being called Lisa, but my wishes didn't matter, and at least they let me keep my last name, probably because it was derisive and happened to be true: I was little. It could have been worse. Many of the girls ended up with embarrassing names: Patty Pansy, Kandy Kiss, Lucy Lipps, Bethany Bottom. Bethany threw a tantrum when she heard her name, which I must say was not inappropriate in view of her precocious physical assets. She refused to curtsy and had to be escorted from the stage by an Amazonian security guard. I never saw her again, and wondered what happened to her. After my curtsy, the Headmistress Jeweled me by announcing that I was a Sapphire. The Sapphire Head Girl, Miss Susan Slipstrap, a leggy blonde with perfect skin, fastened a silver chain with a sparkling blue pendant around my neck, and inserted tiny matching earrings. As I was to find, my pendant would make every Sapphire my friend, but would give every Ruby, Amethyst, Emerald and Pearl a reason to hate me. I lifted my skirt to navigate the steps down from the stage, gratified by the applause I was receiving, and joined the line of girls waiting for the Grand Promenade to begin. I hadn't worn a dress this large and heavy before, and I smoothed the heavy satin over my body and swished the skirts, just to enjoy the deliciously girly feeling. The sight of so many girls in matching gowns and gloves made me stiff, but I was in no position to do anything about it. All of them girls like me, hiding boyish bits under layers of lingerie and petticoat-poufed skirts, looking and behaving like the girls we wanted to be, only more so: Our underthings were lacier, our dresses fuller and frillier, our hair and makeup more elaborate. Members of the audience, mostly male, began strolling over to ogle us as the Naming and Jeweling continued. I got more attention than I expected or desired, confirming Nana's opinion of my looks. I curtsied to everyone who spoke to me, and got nervous when some of them said I was gorgeous and patted my bottom and played with my boyish nipples, which betrayed me by growing hard. A few of them liked to pinch bottoms, and laughed whenever a girl gave a yelp and jumped. There was no one to make them stop these petty violations of our dignity, so there was nothing we could do, but I must say I didn't like being felt up like a piece of meat. Was this how the school let its students be treated? Two adult guests inspected me closely: a tall man with graying hair, and a good-looking woman twice my age. They obviously knew each other and called each other by their first names, Geoffrey and Maxine. The man gave me the creeps by petting my ass, but the woman seemed nice. I didn't know who they were, so I was polite and curtsied to them and gave them my nicest smile. When the guests were done chatting us up and playing with us, they returned to their seats to watch the Grand Promenade. I had no escort and faced the humiliating prospect of having to circle the floor alone in my debutante gown. I felt a little like a bride whose groom failed to show up. At the last moment, though, a young woman walked up to me, a beauty with long dark hair and kohl-rimmed eyes draped in a sleeveless column of maroon silk that showed off an hourglass figure. She wore a Sapphire pendant like mine, so I assume she was an older student in my Jewel. Could there really be a boy beneath that gown? I found it hard to believe, but I'd seen myself in the mirror in my debutante dress, and I knew that I looked just as convincingly female. "You appear to have no escort. May I have the honor?" She had a charming accent. "They call me Paris. Paris Parsi." I stared at Paris and fell in love. She was taller than me, held herself like a queen, and had a commanding air that made me want to melt into her arms for an embrace that would conquer all my fears. I spread my skirts and curtsied to her almost as deeply as I had on stage. "Oh yes, please, Miss Paris, thank you, Miss Paris. Uh, I'm Lisa, Lisa Little," I babbled. Clumsy! My head buzzed with all the smarter things I could have said instead. She smiled and offered me her right arm, as a man might. I wrapped my left hand around it, as a girl might, and lightly clasped her forearm. The touch of her skin was tantalizing. I wanted to sink gracefully to the floor in billowing clouds of satin, and let her lift me to my feet, oh, and then she would kiss my hand, and then my lips, and... I shook my head to clear it, telling myself Paris was a boy. The Promenade music began. Paris and I slowly circled the floor three times counterclockwise, pausing between each step. I caught her eye, and we smiled at each other. In my long white gown and petticoats, I felt like a bride being escorted to the altar. I could see eyes in the audience following me, and heard whistles and gasps and scattered applause as I passed. As a boy, I never cared how I looked, but as a girl, I was now acutely aware of how others saw me, and instinctively wanted to attract their attention. Not as a pathetic sissy - I'd had plenty of that in public school - but as a girl in her first bloom of beauty. If I was to live as a girl, I wanted to be soft and pretty, the way men wanted to be tall and strong. I wasn't attracted to men, but I felt a desire to fill them with lust, and to fill women with jealousy. The Promenade ended in applause, during which Paris asked me to dance. I gratefully accepted and curtsied. The Grand Waltz began, and I happily let her take me in her arms, pleased not to be a wallflower, delighted not to be dancing with any of the men who'd groped me. Paris knew how to lead, and Nana had taught me how to follow, and I happily spun under her upraised hand and let her steer me around the floor. My bliss ended when a hand tapped Paris' shoulder to cut in. It was my Head Girl, Miss Susan Slipstrap. "May I?" Paris had no choice but to surrender me and gracefully withdrew. Miss Susan knew how to lead and waltzed almost as well as Paris, though her style was more athletic than graceful. "Well, Lisa, you're quite the pretty one, aren't you?" "If you say so, Miss," I replied, wary of compliments. "Oh, I do," she said. "You're much prettier than I am, Miss, if you'll pardon me for saying so," I said. It couldn't hurt to suck up to anyone with authority over me. Miss Slipstrap laughed. "Lisa! Flattery will get you everywhere." She asked me where I was from and who my family was and what did my father do. I told her I didn't know where he was. She seemed put off by that, and was about to say something when a hand tapped on her shoulder and a middle-aged woman cut in on her. Miss Susan curtsied and withdrew. My new partner - another genetic female, I sensed - introduced herself as Ms. Abercrombie, Dean of Girls. I wasn't sure what a Dean did, but judging by where she sat at the head table, she was something like a deputy Headmistress. She wore a sensible beige gown, sensible brown shoes, a sensible flip, sensible makeup and sensible accessories, but she could waltz. "You are exquisite, my dear," Ms. Abercrombie said as she led me around the floor. She slowly ran her right hand down my back and over my bottom. I involuntarily arched my back and stuck out my butt at her touch, and felt embarrassed to respond. She asked about me as we danced. I don't think I said anything stupid. I did wonder if it was usual for the Head Girl and Dean of Girls to dance with a neophyte like me. I hadn't seen either of them dance with any of the other girls, so why me? I was willing to accept that I was pretty, but so were so many of the other girls. The Academy, it seemed, chose to admit only small, skinny boys with soft features like mine, who would be easier to feminize. Paris bravely cut in on Ms. Abercrombie and reclaimed me for the final chorus of the song. Ms. Abercrombie withdrew as politely as if Paris had been an adult. When the last notes of the song sounded, I spun around and curtsied deeply to Paris, and saw delight in her eyes. I hope she saw the same in mine. Ms. Abercrombie returned to the head table. I saw her whispering to Miss Backstitch. The Headmistress looked at me, and whispered back to Ms. Abercrombie. Were they talking about me? Had I done something displeasing? I wished I knew what they were saying. I was probably just being paranoid. It was time for the after party. The lights in the room dimmed. A mirrored disco ball began to spin in the spotlight and a DJ - sissy or female, I couldn't tell - wearing a bright pink Lolita dress started playing loud, happy K-pop, perfect music for teenage girls to dance to. The floor quickly filled with newly Named and Jeweled girls in their debutante gowns and their partners. "Do you want to dance?" Paris asked. I curtsied. "If you wish to, Miss." She cocked her head at me. "You don't want to." I drew myself up, wanting to look good to her. "It's just that I'm tired, Miss. When I got up this morning..." "...You were still a boy?" she said with an impish smile. I blushed. "Not much of one," I said. "Oh? Wearing a cute little nightie, were you?" How did she know? I lowered my eyes, too embarrassed to answer. "You did? Ha! Sexy little Lisa! You have secrets to tell, I see, but they can wait. You must be exhausted! Let's get you to your room. The crowd loved you, so leave them wanting more." Paris escorted me to the front desk, where a girl in a school uniform consulted a chart of the Sapphire dorm, told me my luggage was in S-12 and handed me a key. Paris politely walked me down the street to Room 12 in the Sapphire dorm. I unlocked the door. It was an antique bedchamber roomy enough for two double beds, two vanities with lighted mirrors, two chests of drawers and a walk-in closet. My suitcases were arranged neatly at the foot of one of the beds. "Do you know who's in the other bed?" I asked Paris. "Yes," she said. "Me!" I gaped at her. "You're my roommate?" "Yes!" she said. "And I have a feeling we're going to be the very best of friends." She stepped up to me and took me in her arms. At that moment it did not occur to me that she was a boy. She was so beautiful that I didn't care. I wrapped my arms around her neck and let her kiss me. "Oh, Miss Paris," I moaned. "Drop the Miss," she said, "and drop the Paris, too, when we're alone." "You're not named Paris? I mean, isn't that your, um, girl's name?" "I don't care what this place calls me. My real girl's name is Parvaneh," she said. "It's Persian. It means butterfly." "Oh, how pretty!" I said. "Much nicer than Lisa. I hate that name. The boys at my school called me that instead of my boy's name." Parvaneh covered her ears. "Don't tell me what it was! What's wrong with Lisa? It's sparkly and happy. Like you." I gave her a weary smile. "I'm tired, is what I am. I just want to get this dress off and crash." "No!" she said, sounding shocked. "You must undress properly, and then do your beauty routine. Here, I'll help you. That dress is so pretty on you, but let's get it off!" Parvaneh unzipped me, pulled the gown over my head and untied my petticoats' drawstrings. I felt a frisson of femininity as all the satin and taffeta and lace slid down my stockinged legs. I hung up the gown, petticoat and gloves to return to Wardrobe tomorrow, sat at my vanity, removed my makeup and moisturized myself all over. Parvaneh made me sit as she brushed my hair a hundred times. "You have nice hair, Lisa," said. "It'll be gorgeous when it grows out." "Can't I leave it short?" I said. She gave me a look. "No! First years' hair must reach their shoulders by the end of the school year. You'll wear it as a high ponytail in your second year." I stripped off the rest of my lingerie and pulled a waltz-length nightgown out of my luggage. Slipped it over my head, I relished the feel of the soft nylon falling below my knees. Parvaneh caught her breath. "You aren't wearing a slip?" she said. I was puzzled. "What, instead of a nightgown?" "No! Under it." "I've never heard of wearing a slip under a nightgown." "Well, we do," she said. "We're not allowed to wear only one layer of clothing at night. The Headmistress says it helps keep us modest and trains us to enjoy the feel of layers of lingerie sliding over each other." It sounded odd to me, but I took off my nightgown, found a full slip in my luggage, put it on, and then slid the nightgown back over it. It felt nice, especially after I loosened the slip straps a bit. Slip straps. Ha! Miss Susan Slipstrap. Our Head Girl seemed overly proud of herself - it would not surprise me if her parents were rich - and I was glad she was stuck with such an embarrassing name. I crawled under the silky pink duvet on my bed and wriggled a bit to get comfy in my mandatory layers of nightwear. Parvaneh turned off the light and got into her bed. Our mattresses were close together, only a couple of inches apart. She reached across the gap and found my hand. "Good night, Lisa," she said. "Good night, Parvaneh." I squeezed her hand and kissed it. That was all the encouragement she needed. She rolled across the gap between our beds, landing on top of me and pinning me to the mattress. I squealed with surprise and made a show of trying to push her off. She laughed, caught my wrists, pinned them over my head and kissed me on the mouth. I kissed her back. We kissed deeply, and then she showed me other things we could do to please each other. I won't be so indiscreet as to go into detail, but you can probably imagine. Afterwards, Parvaneh flopped back onto her own bed, and I relaxed and closed my eyes, enjoying the feel of my nightgown sliding over my slip. I imagined two hundred girls like me in their beds tonight, all of us wearing slips under our nightgowns, all of us planning to dress as schoolgirls tomorrow, and as my eyes closed, I knew my life as a boy was over. I was a girl now. A Sweet Academy girl. Part 2 I woke up late on Monday, disoriented until I remembered where I was: in the Sapphire dorm at my new school, The Sweet Academy, on the first day of fall term. My gorgeous roommate Parvaneh was already up. I rose, showered, did my face, put on my schoolgirl's uniform, remembered to put my hair in pigtails. I finally opened the envelope that contained my class schedule. It was weird. A bunch of girly subjects, nothing like what you'd study in a normal high school: - 8 am: Deportment - 9 am: Dressmaking - 10 am: Hair & Makeup - 11 am: Cooking (Work Experience) - Noon: Lunch - 1 pm: Ballet - 2 pm: Science for Girls Science for Girls turned out to be an idiotic hodgepodge of a class that should have been called Housekeeping 101: how to shop for groceries (biology), how compare prices (mathematics), how to clean the house and do laundry (chemistry), and how to dust, vacuum and iron (physics). It was so insulting! One student in Science for Girls showed up not in her uniform, but in a pink party dress like one a six-year-old would wear, with big puffy sleeves, a white sash that tied in back, a full skirt, a built-in petticoat and a hemline that barely covered her Disney Princess panties. Her hair was in pigtails tied in pink ribbons, like a first-year student. I smiled inside as I realized it was Robinson, the girl who'd sneered at me when we entered the campus. She was being tormented by her friends, who were talking to her as if she was a little girl, and she seemed to be near tears. Now I knew what the punishment "six for a week" meant: being forced to dress and behave like a six-year-old girl for a week. At least she didn't have to wear diapers, plastic panties and a baby dress, the way someone who forgot to sit down to pee would have to. The good news was that classes only lasted forty-five minutes and were really easy, except for Ballet, which was brutal torture. Many classes met only four days a week, so on most days we had a free period for socializing and gossiping... or doing Work Experience, which was mandatory and which the teachers said was a good way to learn a future trade, but which I soon realized was just a clever way to make students provide most of the labor needed to run the school without being paid. My Cooking class turned out to be the Work Experience team that made lunch for all the students every day. I began to see that the school really consisted of a small staff of adults, including teachers, who loosely supervised dozens of Work Experience teams that cooked all the meals, washed the dishes, washed and dried and folded and ironed the laundry, cleaned the bathrooms, mopped the floors... all the drudgery traditionally done by housewives or servants. In return, student got Work Experience credits that were required to get a diploma, but were otherwise worthless. The school even rented out Work Experience teams to local businesses for janitorial and housekeeping services. A bus left the school every night at eight, filled with girls in cute little housekeeper uniforms who cleaned local offices and returned shortly before midnight. They, too, were paid in class credit instead of money. During my first week, like every other new student, I had an appointment with the school nurse. She made me strip down to my panties and training bra, took my vitals, asked a bunch of questions about my health history, gave me two shots in my bottom to boost my immune system, and two bottles of the daily vitamins that Nana started giving me after The Academy accepted my application. She said I'd need to come in for a series of booster shots, but otherwise I looked fine. I asked if they needed a blood test, and she said no. After my first week at The Academy, I began to feel like I was settling in at school. It was nice getting up and just putting on my schoolgirl's uniform instead of having to obsess over what I was going to wear that day and would it make me look cute. I enjoyed the daily sight of two hundred girls in their Sweet Institute uniforms heading to their next class at the top of the hour, especially on brisk fall days when mischievous breezes lifted skirts and briefly bared pantied bottoms. Best of all, Parvaneh and I were besties. She was the one in charge, and I liked it that way. Sometimes she would outright order me to do some little thing - refill her water bottle, get her a pillow, rub her feet - and I would feel the thrill of having to obey. I sometimes wished she would order me to do something more difficult or embarrassing, and threaten me with discipline if I failed or refused. Nothing harsh - a few love taps on my bottom would remind me who was the boss. I'd never been much of a student, but I must have been doing better than I expected, because a month after the term started, the Sapphire Head Girl summoned me to her office. I nervously checked myself in the mirror, redid my lip gloss, adjusted my blouse and knocked on her door. She told me to enter. I stood in front of her desk - there was no chair - and curtsied. "Yes, Head Girl?" I knew she didn't like being called Miss Slipstrap. To my surprise, she asked if I wanted to assist her in her duties. "Doing what, Miss?" I already didn't like her. I'd heard by now that she was a rich bitch from the Upper East Side. Her parents probably sent her to The Sweet Academy because they didn't want their society guests embarrassed by the sight of their son sashaying around the apartment in skirts. "It's an important role," she said. "I want you to become my personal assistant. You would write my weekly social-media posts for the Sapphire group, with my approval of course, and you would, ah, assist me in other ways." "What kind of ways?" "Oh, all sorts." "I'm not sure what you mean, Miss." "Oh, don't be dense! You're beautiful, and I'm lonely. They say a Head Girl has no friends. I need a friend." "A friend to do what, Miss?" "A friend to be friendly! Someone nicer than the snotty little prefects who spend all their time trying to cut each other down. Someone to talk to, watch TV with... someone to keep our rooms tidy... someone to give me a hug when I really need one..." The job sounded more personal than assistant. I wasn't attracted to Miss Susan Slipstrap, but it presumably couldn't hurt my career to keep the Head Girl happy. "If I did that for you, Miss, what would you do for me?" "You don't understand, Lisa. You'll be my assistant! It's an honor, especially for a first year." "Won't the other girls be jealous?" "Let them! If you're already my assistant as a first-year, you could easily become a prefect next year, and maybe Sapphire Head Girl someday. I could put in a good word for you." I was a newbie. She was Head Girl of my Jewel. How could I say no? She was offering me a step up the social ladder at The Sweet Academy. If I refused, she would probably never offer it again. And if I had to cuddle with her a little bit as part of the job, well, she was cute even if I personally didn't care for her, and whatever we did would be nicer than being pawed by some smelly, hairy boy. I curtsied to Miss Susan. "Yes, Miss Susan, I'd love to be your personal assistant, and I look forward to having you teach me." "Wonderful," she said. "Let's start by moving your room closer to mine." Did this mean I would be separated from Parvaneh? Did Miss Susan Slipstrap somehow know the two of us were BFFs? Was she trying to break us up? Did she want me for herself? I instantly regretted saying yes, but it was too late. ~ ~ ~ Parvaneh and I cried when I told her I was moving. I found myself in a tiny bedroom off the mini-kitchen in the Head Girl's ground-floor suite, where I found out what my real job was. I was now Miss Susan Slipstrap's lady's maid. She never called me that, and I wore my school uniform instead of a maid's dress under my apron, and occasionally even went to class, but I did for her what a lady's maid would do. I rose before Miss Susan and served her tea in bed. I laid out her clothes for the day - a pointlessly humiliating task, since she wore the same uniform as the rest of us, except for a gold-plated HEAD GIRL badge above her left breast. She put on her own makeup, but I learned to set her hair in the adult styles that seniors were allowed to wear, and wished I could wear them instead of the stupid pigtails and ribbons we first-years had to wear. Between classes, I tidied her bedroom, cleaned her bathroom, ran errands for her and took care of her clothes. She had me launder and iron them by hand rather than subjecting them to the tender mercies of the Work Experience students toiling in the school laundry. At night I helped her undress and brushed her hair a hundred strokes and gave her a goodnight curtsy. I slipped away one day to have coffee and a lovely chat with Parvaneh. Miss Susan asked afterwards where I had been, and discouraged me from seeing her again. "Oh, I know who she is. Paris, the refugee girl. I'm not sure what she's doing here, to be honest. The Academy normally caters to a different class of people. In any case, it won't do you any good to be seen with her. She's not one of us, dear. Remember that your time belongs to me, not her." Her words were totally unfair and made me angry. Who did Miss Sissy Queen Bee Slipstrap think she was? Parvaneh had told me her story. She was indeed of a different class of people than Miss Susan. She was born an upper-class Iranian boy, heir to an ancient business dynasty, and grew up wanting to wear girls' clothes. When she was thirteen, her father found her dressed as a girl, gave her a beating and threatened to turn her over to the mullahs' morality police. She fled her family home that night, disguised as a young woman, wearing a small fortune in her mother's jewels and hiding another small fortune in her backpack. A fabulous pearl necklace got her a ride in the back of a truck from Tehran in the north to a small port on the Strait of Hormuz and a risky night crossing to Dubai in a boat too small to have a radar profile. A matching choker, pendant, bracelet and earrings secured her a first- class ticket to JFK despite her Iranian passport. Upon landing in New York, she immediately claimed asylum as a transgender person likely to be imprisoned or killed if she returned to Iran - or even Dubai, where homosexuality was illegal. With the possible assistance of a five-carat diamond ring that disappeared from her finger, she was granted asylum and immediately enrolled herself at The Sweet Academy, a school she'd heard about in the Tehran transgender underground. Her story sounded like a movie, with herself as the heroine, and I told her so. Miss Slipstrap's attitude toward Parvaneh was almost enough to make me resign as her personal assistant, but when I cooled down, I realized I had everything to lose and nothing to gain by quitting. So I kept on piling up the brownie points with her. In any case, it didn't matter for long. Two weeks later I became Miss Slipstrap's personal assistant, Ms. Abercrombie, the Dean of Girls, summoned me to her office. Like so many of the staff, Ms. Abercrombie was a tall, athletic genetic female in middle age. I stood in front of her desk and curtsied. To my surprise, she invited me to take a chair. I was careful to sit gracefully, as we were learning in Deportment. "Lisa, how do you like being Miss Slipstrap's personal assistant?" I swallowed. Her tone of voice suggested that Ms. Abercrombie was not Miss Susan's biggest fan. I tried to play it safe. "She told me it was a great honor, ma'am." "Do you think it's a great honor?" I squirmed on the seat. How much of the truth could I tell? "I don't know, ma'am. I know it's a lot of work. She uses me more as a maid than a personal assistant." Ms. Abercrombie smiled. "Do you like being her maid, Lisa?" "I'd rather be a personal assistant, ma'am. A proper one, not a... a maid." "You're not wearing a maid's dress." "I'm doing maid's work, ma'am, and she makes me wear an apron." I described what I did. "Well, Lisa," Ms. Abercrombie said, "would you rather work for me than for our precious Miss Slipstrap?" "Doing what, ma'am?" "I've been looking for a personal secretary. I could excuse you from any class of your choice to let you attend to your secretarial duties." "Could you excuse me from Ballet, ma'am?" I loved wearing tutus and dance skirts, but even basic ballet was the hardest work I'd ever done. I preferred social dances, where I could wear a formal gown and just had to follow my partner's lead - albeit backwards and in high heels, as someone once said. "Yes, dear." "What would I have to do, ma'am?" "You would sit at a desk outside my office, wearing a cute little secretary's outfit, and you would take my phone calls, check my emails, keep my calendar up to date, greet visitors, that sort of thing. How does that sound?" "Better than being a maid, ma'am." "Very good, Lisa. I'll need you to dress as a secretary, of course, in a very short skirt, a very tight blouse and very high heels." "Yes, ma'am. Do I change back into my school uniform when I go to classes?" "The more I think about it, Lisa, the more I wonder if you really need to attend classes. Maybe Deportment, to make you even more graceful and feminine." "But how will I ever graduate, ma'am?" "How important is it to you to graduate? We're not exactly an academic institution! We're a finishing school for boys who want to be girls. You're already more feminine than a lot of our juniors or seniors. Your hours working for me will count as Work Experience, and you'll learn more from me than you'll ever learn in class, even if you're just bending over to file documents or dust my office furniture." "Oh, ma'am! Would I have to bend over in my very short secretary's skirt?" "Of course! You'll be a delectable sight! I hope you won't have a problem if I caress your ever so caressable bottom." I blushed. "Oh, please don't, ma'am, that would be so embarrassing." She rose, circled her desk, bent me over it and stroked my rear end over my pleated skirt and full slip. "Is it embarrassing if I do this?" "Yes, ma'am," I said, breathing hard, afraid to resist. She slowly pulled up my skirt and slip, pulled down my panties, and caressed my naked bottom. A shiver ran through me. "And this?" I pulled away from her. "Please don't do that, ma'am." "Then I won't." She let me go. I pulled up my panties and let my skirt and slip fall, thankful that no one else had witnessed my humiliation. I'm sure my face was scarlet. "Well done, Lisa!" Ms. Abercrombie said. "I was testing you to see if you would set limits and tell me to stop. You passed! Will you become my personal secretary? I assure you it's a more important and higher-status job than being Miss Slipstrap's personal assistant. It'll be like a real job, except unpaid, of course." I was glad to hear that Ms. Abercrombie had been testing me, not just groping me. When I said stop, she stopped. Surely it would be better to work for the Dean of Girls than for one of the five Head Girls. Learning some office skills would prepare me for the kinds of clerical jobs that an inexperienced girl like me was likely to get. And I'd get to wear something besides my schoolgirl uniform. "Do I need to talk to Miss Slipstrap first, ma'am?" "No, Lisa, I'll take care of everything. Don't you worry about Miss Susan." Ms. Abercrombie told me that if I accepted, I would start working for her next Monday, and before then she would have me moved from Miss Slipstrap's suite into a new room in the Administration dorm, near her office, with a closet full of cute secretary's outfits. I didn't want to leave the Sapphire dorm. Parvaneh would be unhappy, my Jewelmates would resent me, and I had no friends in the other Jewels. But Ms. Abercrombie insisted, saying she had to be impartial toward all the Jewels, and if I were to work for her, I would have to become a Sapphire alumna, not an active member. "How can I be an alumna?" I said. "Don't I have to graduate first?" She smiled. "You want to graduate? No problem. That is to say, I will recommend to the Headmistress that she award you an honorary degree in Feminine Arts in consideration of services rendered to The Sweet Academy. If you like, I can have the diploma say you graduated with honors." "Oh no, ma'am, that wouldn't be true. If I'm to become an alumna, all I want is the diploma." I curtsied. "Thank you, ma'am." She never let me return to my room next to Miss Slipstrap's. I spent the night on a sofa in her boudoir, and the next day I moved into a room next to Ms. Abercrombie's in the Administration dormitory. It was larger and nicer than any of the rooms I'd occupied so far. It held my clothes and everything else from my old room, plus a week's worth of sexy secretary outfits. There was also a new Sapphire pendant for me, the smaller one that alumnae wore. On the Sunday before I started work as Ms. Abercrombie's secretary, I tried on my new outfits in my new room. They all had short, tight black skirts - some with a back vent or kick pleat, some without - and feminine, semi-sheer blouses in various colors and designs, worn over a black full slip, bra and panties. The skirts weren't quite as tight as I expected, for which I was thankful. The black slip was visible through the blouses, giving me a naughty look. Under it, I wore black lace panties, a garter belt and nylon stockings, with pointy-toed black patent stilettos that would kill my feet hours before quitting time. On my nightstand I found rhinestone-studded, black-framed girls' glasses with fake lenses, to make me look smart. I quickly discovered that my duties as her secretary were quite light. There were few phone calls and little correspondence. There weren't many disciplinary cases for Ms. Abercrombie to handle, either, partly because Sweet Academy girls quickly learned to behave perfectly at all times, but also because the Head Girls and prefects in each Jewel were allowed to dish out punishment for minor offenses without notifying the Dean's office. Most of my work consisted of re-filing folders of student or staff records in their proper place in a long row of file cabinets. I was never sure why the folders had been pulled out, since they seemed to have nothing to do with the other work of the office, but mine was not to question why. I'd been Ms. Abercrombie's secretary for two weeks when, late one afternoon, a cute clerk from the Headmistress' office said Miss Backstitch wanted to see me. Ms. Abercrombie seemed taken aback, but sent me on my way. I walked the short distance down the hallway to the Headmistress' office, my secretary heels clicking on the wooden floor, my steps shortened by my tight, thigh-high secretary skirt, my black slip and bra straps showing through my sheer baby-blue ruffled blouse. I saw something leaving the Headmistress' office that I'd never seen before: a student who'd been turned into a baby. That was the penalty for standing up to pee and various other offenses. She was crawling down the hallway on her hands and knees, sucking on a pacifier and wearing lace-trimmed pink kneepads and mittens, with her hair in pigtails covered by a white pleated baby's bonnet. She wore a light pink baby's dress in her size, all frilly and lacy and decorated with ribbons and bows. Its skirt was very short, too short to cover her bulky diaper and Disney Princess plastic panties. From what the Headmistress had told us, babies had to crawl everywhere and were not allowed to use the toilet for the duration of their punishment. They had to use their diapers instead, and had to beg other students to change them afterwards. It was a painless but utterly humiliating punishment, and I was always extremely careful to use the toilet the way girls were supposed to. The secretary waved me into the Headmistress' office. I curtsied awkwardly in my short, tight skirt. "How may I serve you, Headmistress?" She looked me up and down. "You're out of uniform, Lisa. Don't you like dressing like a schoolgirl?" I curtsied again. "Oh yes, ma'am, but please, I'm on Work Experience as Ms. Abercrombie's personal secretary, and she requires me to dress like this." "Does she? I wonder if those clothes belonged to the secretary she fired last week. They're a size too large on you." I didn't know Ms. Abercrombie had fired her secretary. Did she do it just so she could hire me? Why? "Tell me, Lisa, are you attending any of your classes?" I curtsied yet again, hoping to placate her, doubting I could. "Please, ma'am, only Deportment and Dressmaking. Ms. Abercrombie said my secretarial duties are more important than my other classes." "What secretarial duties? How many letters did you type today?" "One, ma'am, to the state Department of Education, explaining that we can't send them last quarter's reports because of a data loss." "First I've heard of it. How many phone calls did you answer?" "Today, ma'am? Two. One from the caf? saying Ms. Abercrombie's lunch order was ready, so I picked it up for her, and one from a woman who wouldn't identify herself and said she'd call Ms. Abercrombie later." "Did you do any filing?" "Oh, yes, ma'am. I do filing for Ms. Abercrombie every day, after I bring her coffee in the morning. There are usually at least twenty files a day that I have to re-file accurately." "I see," Miss Backstitch said. "By any chance, are your files all stored in the bottom drawers of the file cabinets, so that you have to bend over and let her stare at your pantied bottom?" I knew exactly why Ms. Abercrombie made me do filing the way she did. I didn't mind, as long as no one else saw me. "Um, yes, ma'am. I mean, I do have to bend over, and I'm sure my... my panties show, but I don't know if she's staring at them." "Good answer, Lisa. It sounds to me as though you don't have quite enough work to do as Ms. Abercrombie's secretary. Would you like to serve as my deputy student liaison instead?" "What's a deputy student liaison, ma'am?" "Every year, I designate one student as my liaison to the student body as a whole. If a student has a complaint, or knows of someone breaking the rules, or knows of something bad that might happen, or knows something else that I should hear about, she can tell my student liaison instead of coming to me, which some students are afraid to do. Once a week, I meet with my liaison, to hear the things she's been told that I need to know. My liaison this year is a Miss Twirls. You would be her deputy, a new position. If Miss Twirls is injured, disabled or seriously ill, you would take over for her." My goodness, this sounded like an important job! Much more important than being Ms. Abercrombie's bored secretary. Why would Miss Backstitch offer it to a first-year like me? For that matter, why did Ms. Abercrombie make me her secretary, and why did Miss Slipstrap make me her personal assistant? There was nothing special about me or my parents or grandparents as far as I knew. Other girls told me I was very pretty, even beautiful, but there were lots of cute girls at The Academy. Since I had the Headmistress' attention, I decided to ask. I curtsied. "May I ask you a question, Headmistress?" She nodded. "I'm finding things a little strange here, ma'am. Almost as soon as I got here, Miss Slipstrap took me away from my roommate and made me her personal assistant. Then Ms. Abercrombie took me away from Miss Slipstrap and made me her personal secretary. Now you want to take me away from Ms. Abercrombie to do another job that I can't possibly be qualified for. What's going on? Out of two hundred students, why am I getting all this attention? It can't be because I'm anyone important, or a particularly good student." Miss Backstitch sighed. "I'm sorry, Lisa, but I can't answer your question. Not now. All I can tell you is that at some point we will be able to answer your question, and when we can, we will." "That's not fair, ma'am! Am I in danger or something?" "No, Lisa, you're in no physical danger. But it would be best if you accepted my offer. You will certainly be safe living in my house." "Oh, is deputy student liaison a live-in position, ma'am?" "Yes. You've worked as a maid, correct?" Why was she asking? "Yes, ma'am." "Good. On days when my new deputy student liaison isn't busy liaising, perhaps you can help around the house." My heart sank. "Yes, ma'am." "Dressed properly, of course. I assume you have a maid's uniform?" "Yes, ma'am." I sighed. Back to being a household servant. At least I worked for the Headmistress now, not the Sapphire Head Girl. And maybe deputy student liaison was an important job after all. ~ ~ ~ I moved into the Headmistress' rather luxurious residence and quickly learned that my so-called job as deputy student liaison was meaningless. I was never trained on how to be a liaison, was never asked to do any liaisoning or liaising or whatever it's called. Instead, because I'd foolishly agreed to help around the house, I became Miss Backstitch's household maid. I did my assigned chores and waited for something to happen, for some clue to what was going on. It was not a good time. I was unhappy, nervous, angry, and Miss Backstitch noticed. "What's bothering you, Lisa?" I shook my head. "I could tell you if you would tell me why I'm here, ma'am. It's obviously not to be a deputy student liaison." She shook her head. "I'm sorry, I still can't. But I can tell you that there will be a formal dinner for four people at a private residence off campus in a week, and I want you to serve the dinner in your very prettiest maid's uniform. I strongly recommend that you do a perfect job and impress them, because they are important people." "Who are they, ma'am?" "They were at the Debutante Ball," Miss Backstitch said. "You wouldn't know their names." It was a long week, during which the Headmistress did nothing to make me less nervous about the upcoming dinner party. On Monday, she called me to her office and gave me a new French maid's uniform, one that was much nicer than any of the ones I had - a lace- trimmed black satin dress with a very full, short skirt, a pair of petticoats that peeped out from under the skirt and gave it just the right fullness, a corset and other lingerie, stockings, four-inch black patent stilettos and accessories, including a matching apron, cap and lace wristlets. On Wednesday, she took me to a seamstress for a fitting and decided to have the dress taken in another inch at the waist. I whimpered, and she told me to be quiet. On Friday, the day before the dinner party, she took me to the salon for a shampoo and highlights, and decided on the spot that I needed extensions as well. An hour later, I had hair down to my shoulder blades, gathered into much prettier pigtails with bouncy curls. On Saturday morning, she took me back to the salon for makeup, a mani/pedi and a blowout. She was leaving nothing to chance as far as my appearance went. We returned to her house, where I dressed for the evening. First, the corset, which she laced an inch tighter than usual. She toyed with my breasts, which had started growing soon after I enrolled at The Sweet Academy but were still barely an A cup. I felt my nipples erect. She smiled. "Let's make a good first impression, and worry about truth in advertising later," she said. She slipped a pair of silicone breast forms into the cups of my corset and adjusted them until I had realistic perky little boobs, almost a B cup. "That's more like it - it gives you some curves without overdoing it, they'll like that." Next, she drew black seamed nylon stockings up my smooth legs and clipped them to the corset's garters. Over them she slid a pair of sheer black panties with rows of white lace sewn across its seat. "A little treat for anyone who sees you bend over," she said. I blushed. She handed me a white full slip lavished with more lace than any of my other slips. I pulled it down over my head and let it fall to just above my knees. Miss Backstitch tugged and twitched at it until satisfied, and then had me step into two petticoats with elastic waistbands that she pulled up to my corseted waistline. She fluffed them out so they were as bouncy and full as possible. The inner petticoat was three tiers of net crinoline lined with soft nylon and trimmed with ruffled lace. The outer petticoat was made of taffeta that made a rustling frou-frou sound as it swished around me. Its tiers were bound with white ribbon, and the hem had three narrow tucks and a narrow row of taffeta ruffles trimmed with more lace. And then came the black satin dress, with ruffled white lace trim at the neckline, hem and the lower edge of its puff sleeves. Its duchesse satin slithered enticingly over the underlying petticoats and slip. Over it went a full bib apron in white georgette with lace-trimmed ruffles over the shoulder and around the skirt of the apron, tied in back with a big bow. I pulled lacy wristlets over my hands and slid a matching Alice band decorated with ruffles, ribbons, lace and seed pearls into my hair. "Here." Miss Backstitch handed me a wedding-style garter laced with blue ribbon and told me to slide it up my thigh. "Just for a bit of fun." I did, knowing it, too, would be visible if I didn't move carefully in my skirts. I slid my feet into my high heels and I was done. My feet would be in agony before the evening ended, but I had to admit they looked fabulous. They turned me from a girl in a frilly dress into a budding young woman advertising her vulnerability by taking tiny steps that click-click- clicked on the floor, forced her hips to wriggle back and forth and made it impossible for her to outrun or evade a would-be ravisher. I was ready for - what? I asked Miss Backstitch to at least give me a clue to what was about to happen. "Just a dinner party," she said, and smiled. I was so frustrated I almost stamped my stilettoed heel, but I knew that if I did, I'd probably land on my plump bottom. We drove to the house where the dinner would take place, a stately, symmetrical Georgian Colonial in a well-manicured neighborhood of older homes a few miles north of campus. A pretty maid wearing an Amethyst alumna's pendant admitted us and took us to a drawing room. On a sofa sat a mature woman with a superb figure - was she corseted? - and an old-fashioned hairstyle, wearing a classic narrow-skirted boucl? suit in the same pattern as The Academy's tartan. She wore a single strand of large, perfect pearls that were worth more than I would ever be. I curtsied to her. She spoke to Miss Backstitch. "Thank you for letting me borrow Lisa." "Happy to help, Mrs. Sweet. I'll be back later," Miss Backstitch said. She left. Sweet? As in the name of the school? "So you are Lisa Little," Mrs. Sweet said. I curtsied again. "Yes, ma'am." "I see why we have a problem," she said. "Ma'am?" She did not reply. She introduced me to the barmaid and caterer and left us to arrange details. They assured me everything would be perfect, there were only five courses, all I had to do was carry plates from the kitchen to the dining room and back, and they were serving only one wine, a Sauvignon blanc from New Zealand, so I merely needed to refill wine glasses at the beginning of each course. I hoped they were right. I would be serving important people I didn't know, and I didn't know why, and I didn't know what would happen if I messed up. The doorbell rang. I answered it. On the doorstep stood a tall, rugged-looking man with salt-and-pepper hair. He wore an immaculately tailored business suit. I didn't know who he was, but I placed him: He'd been in the audience the night of the Debutante Ball. I remembered him checking me out during the Grand Promenade, with the same glint in his eye as he had now. "Good evening, Lisa," he said. "You look superb in that uniform." I was surprised he remembered my name. I curtsied. "Yes, sir, thank you, sir. Please come in." He smiled a little too widely. "With pleasure. Do a turn for me." I did. He asked for a spin, no doubt to catch a sight of my undies. I gave him one, and hope my hems swirled high enough to expose my lace- trimmed bottom. After all, I was just a maid, following a guest's orders. I took him to Mrs. Sweet in the drawing room. I could feel his eyes on my back, and took care to walk as femininely as I could. He hadn't told me his name. "Your guest, ma'am." Mrs. Sweet held out her hand. He took it and began to raise it to his lips, but she firmly turned the gesture into a handshake. "Mr. St. James," she said. He gave her a polite bow. "I see we are formal tonight," he said. She gave him a thin smile. "Geoffrey." The doorbell rang again. I curtsied and went to answer it. There stood a strikingly handsome lady, thirtyish, with short, attractively rumpled blonde hair, wearing a gorgeous little black pantsuit and carrying a black patent clutch. Her gleaming stilettos were as tall as mine, but the red soles told me she'd paid a lot more for hers. "Good evening, ma'am. Please come in." "Good evening, Lisa," she said, and entered. I didn't know who she was, but I remembered seeing her at the Debutante Ball. Hadn't she been with Mr. St. James? She ran her eyes over me as thoroughly as he had. "You are utterly gorgeous as a maid." "Oh, thank you, ma'am. I love your outfit." "You want to get back into trousers, do you, Lisa?" "I'd rather wear my school uniform, ma'am." That seemed safe to say. She smiled. I led her to the drawing room, entered and curtsied to Mrs. Sweet. "Your guest, Miss." "Ms. Moreau." Mrs. Sweet shook her hand. "Maxine," said Mr. St. James with a nod. He offered his hand, but she did not take it. I curtsied and returned to wait by the front door. Miss Backstitch had not yet returned. Five minutes passed, during which I wondered if I should be taking drink orders or something. I decided that if they wanted me to serve drinks or anything else, someone would tell me, so I just waited. The doorbell rang. It was Miss Backstitch. "Have they started?" she asked. She hurried to the drawing room. Moments later, I heard a bell chime and went to see if it was for me. "Come in, Lisa," Miss Backstitch said. I stood awkwardly in the middle of the room. She faced the others. "You've all seen her before, but may I introduce Lisa Little, who will serve us tonight." I felt dreadfully embarrassed. Why on earth would Mrs. Sweet introduce her temporary maid to her powerful guests? "Lisa, may I introduce Mr. Geoffrey St. James, Ms. Maxine Moreau and Mrs. Stephanie Sweet," Miss Backstitch said. "They are the board of directors of The Sweet Academy. Mrs. Sweet is the great-great-great- granddaughter of Sarah Sweet, who founded The Academy in 1869." Oh my God. From complete ignorance to information overload in an instant. An important audience, indeed! But why would they be interested in me? On an impulse, I performed a full court curtsy. Mrs. Sweet gave me a nod. "Nicely done, my dear. We'd like drinks served here immediately, and dinner in half an hour." "Yes, ma'am." I curtsied and withdrew. An animated conversation broke out on the other side of the door, but I couldn't make out a word. I spoke to the barmaid, who immediately set off for the drawing room with a nicely stocked drinks cart, and the caterer, who told me not to worry, half an hour was perfect. I decided to wait in the kitchen, where I could keep an eye on things, until Miss Backstitch or someone told me what to do. Half an hour later, the barmaid emerged from the drawing room and told me the guests were ready to eat. I thanked her, checked with the caterer, returned to the drawing room and announced dinner, desperately hoping that no disasters lay ahead. To my great relief, none did. The table in the small dining room was perfectly set. Mrs. Sweet had ordered a simple menu: a spiced lentil and butternut squash soup, cold smoked king salmon, roast Cornish game hens, a Mediterranean salad and a simple lemon sorbet. The food was excellently prepared and the courses arrived at perfect intervals. I served and cleared food plates from the left side, proceeding counterclockwise, and served wine the opposite way, from the right side and clockwise, the way a proper maid does. When not serving, I retreated to the wall with my eyes lowered and my hands folded over my apron, doing nothing to call attention to myself, standing perfectly still so as not to make my taffeta petticoat rustle loudly. The conversation during the meal was stilted, as might be expected with a servant present, so I got no inkling of why the directors were meeting, or what if anything I had to do with it, or what would happen later. It did seem to me that they deliberately kept me busy at table, dropping utensils or napkins and asking me to pick them up, or tapping their glass for more water or wine. They all watched me closely - it was unnerving. I began to wonder if I had lipstick on my teeth or something. After I cleared the dessert plates, Mrs. Sweet beckoned to me. "Lisa, thank you for serving us so capably and, may I say, attractively. Please serve sherry and port in the drawing room and then wait in the kitchen until I ring for you." She tinkled a little silver bell sitting on a side table. "It may be some time." It was. I served the drinks, did the dishes and cleaned up the kitchen and dining room while waiting for the bell, watching the hands of the old-fashioned clock slowly advance. I couldn't make out anything they were saying in the drawing room, but more than once heard raised voices. I waited, not knowing what I was waiting for. The entire board of directors! I couldn't imagine what they were debating. While the wait seemed endless, by the clock it was only an hour later when I heard a man's and woman's steps in the hallway, and then the front door opening and closing. If those were guests leaving, I felt guilty for not properly showing them out. But I'd been told to stay in the kitchen until Mrs. Sweet rang for me. Just at that moment, she did. I entered the drawing room. Mr. St. James and Ms. Moreau were gone. Mrs. Sweet and Miss Backstitch remained. I curtsied. "You rang, ma'am?" "Yes, Lisa," Mrs. Sweet said. "Miss Backstitch and you will remain here tonight. I'll need both of you in the morning. Miss Backstitch will use the guest suite, and you can sleep in the trundle under the bed. Please tidy up in here and take yourself to bed. I'll ask my Yvette to find nightwear for both of you." "Yes, ma'am," I said. "May I ask a question?" She sighed. "The answer is, we had a discussion that will resume in the morning. Please serve a light breakfast at eight. I expect Ms. Moreau and Mr. St. James to return around ten. Please show them into the drawing room, serve coffee, and then do your regular chores. If you hear my bell, report to me in the drawing room." Arghh! I still had no clue to what was going on. "Yes, ma'am." I picked up glasses and empty bottles in the drawing room and took them to the kitchen. I was about to load the dishwasher when someone knocked on the back door just outside the kitchen. Who would be in the back yard at this time of night? I peeked out the window. It was Mr. St. James. I unbolted the door, let him in and curtsied. "Is there anything you need, sir?" "Yes, Lisa," he said. He was breathing hard, from strong exertion or emotion. "I need you to come with me. At once." An alarm bell went off in my head. "Come with you? Where, sir?" "To a safe place," he said. "I want to offer you a job, but first I want to warn you that you're in danger from Ms. Moreau and Mrs. Sweet. They're going to take you captive and keep you in that maid's dress." "Why? What have I done wrong?" "What you've done is become the most beautiful girl in the recent history of The Academy. Do you not know this, Lisa? They're fighting over you. Everyone from Ms. Moreau down to your own Head Girl wants to own you, lock you away and keep you as her own private toy. Everyone except me. I'm offering you a job, a proper job in a place where you'll be safe from them. But you need to come with me now, to escape before it's too late." I frowned. No one had tried to lock me away, and I wasn't anyone's private toy. I thought of Parvaneh and blushed. I wouldn't mind being her toy... Mr. St. James wrapped a large hand around my upper left arm and pulled me toward the door. My skirts swished wildly. "Are you listening, Lisa? You need to come with me." I instinctively pulled away from him, but couldn't break his grip. "No! Let go of me!" He pulled me outside. I almost tripped on the back steps in my heels. A black car loomed on the driveway. "Mr. St. James, what are you doing? Let go of me! Help! Help!" I cried. "Be quiet, Lisa!" He opened the back door of the car and tried to push me in. I twisted away from him and banged my hip painfully on the side of the car. He grabbed me again. "Help! Help!" I shrieked. Part 3 Hampered by my high heels and maid's uniform, I struggled with Mr. St. James in the darkness, trying to keep him from shoving me into the back seat of his car. He was much stronger than me, but he slipped on the gravel driveway and fell to one knee. He swayed slightly. I think he was drunk. I tried to pull free of him, but he kept his grip on my slender wrist. "Help, help!" I cried. A woman's voice cracked like a whip in the darkness. "Mister. Saint. James!" The back-porch light turned on. Mrs. Sweet appeared in the open doorway, wearing a stunning white negligee and peignoir that glowed in the light and made her look like an avenging angel. "What are you doing, sir?" she said. "Let go of Lisa at once, or I will call the police!" His clutch on me loosened. I broke free, scurried to the back door and slipped past Mrs. Sweet to safety inside. "I see what you're doing!" Mr. St. James shouted. "You want her for yourself! You and Maxine! Lisa could make a fortune for us, and you're trying to cut me out!" I could make a fortune for them? What did he mean? "You're wrong, Geoffrey," Mrs. Sweet said. "Maxine is just trying to protect her from you. We didn't expect you to try to kidnap her, for God's sake! What on earth were you thinking? Where were you going to take her?" "Somewhere safe," he said. "Away from you." "She's safe here. We'll keep it that way. You've had too much to drink, Geoffrey. Go home. Get some sleep. We'll see you for coffee in the morning and finish our discussion." He glared at her. Without a word he got in his car, one of those fancy new electric ones. It sped down the driveway with a quiet hum. Tires squealed as it turned into the street. Mrs. Sweet locked the back door and turned the deadbolt. "Come with me, Lisa," she said. She led me to her room, closed the door, sat beside me on the bed. "I'm sorry you had to experience that, dear," she said. "Was Mr. St. James really trying to kidnap me, ma'am?" "I'm afraid so. Don't open the door to him - except at ten tomorrow morning - or allow yourself to be alone with him, especially outdoors." "Ma'am? What did he mean when he said I could make a fortune for you?" Mrs. Sweet hesitated. "To be honest, I'm not quite sure. He does believe you're quite beautiful and could succeed as a model or some sort of celebrity, a spokesperson for girls who were born male." "Do you think I could do that, ma'am?" "I hope you never try." She laid a hand on my arm. "Oh, Lisa, you have the beauty and maybe even the brains to succeed at whatever you do. But that's not what Sweet Academy girls do. We don't train our girls to compete in the cold, hard world outside the home. We train our girls to serve and support others, to be soft and quiet, to obey rather than lead. We don't train them to become celebrities or activists. We train them to play the wife's role in relationships, whether their partner is male or female. You've only been here a few months, Lisa, but you understand, don't you? Isn't that what you want to be? A beautiful girl who finds true love and satisfaction in keeping house for her spouse or mistress?" I thought about it. The very thought of trying to make my living as a man frightened me. I would have to dress in ugly, rough clothing and cut off my hair and go without makeup or scent or jewelry. I would have to walk in long strides and swing my arms like an ape and be strong and hard and tough enough to compete with other men at male dominance games, laughing and back-slapping and swapping dirty jokes and betting on sports and whatever else men did before they got drunk and mean and started to fight. I didn't know, really, never having had a proper father. All I knew was that I didn't dare try to present myself as a man in public. Real men would immediately know I was a sissy. Which meant - what? That I should remain as I was, a student at a school where they turned boys into girls? That I should dress like a girl, behave like a girl, feel a girl's emotions, settle for a girl's place in life? Fulfill my destiny as Lisa, not Lee? What other future could I have? I had no other realistic choice. I could not escape from The Academy - security was unobtrusive but vigilant. I could not be a man. I was a girl who needed to belong to someone strong and decisive, someone who would protect and take care of me. I was a girl. A girl dressed in the ultra-feminine clothes of a submissive servant. "Yes, ma'am," I said, curtsying more deeply than usual. It felt like I was curtsying more than ever these days, and somehow that felt right. Like wearing my maid's uniform, it felt like the appropriate way to show my betters that I would submit to them and do as I was told. It was so much easier, so much more comfortable than having to figure out a way through life on my own. Mrs. Sweet lifted my chin with a finger and made my eyes meet hers. "Lisa, I don't want anything bad to happen to you. Do you know what's really going on here?" Of course I didn't! No one would tell me anything! "I - I'm not sure what you mean, ma'am." She gave me a pitying look. "Since your first day at The Sweet Academy, you have attracted the attention of your superiors. All of them instantly recognized your value. First it was Miss Slipstrap, then Ms. Abercrombie, then Miss Backstitch, and now both Mr. St. James and Ms. Moreau want to get their hands on you." "Why?" I asked. "Oh, Lisa! Don't you feel it inside? You inspire desire. Thousands of boys have become girls at my Academy, and you are one of the most beautiful I've ever seen. There is a girlish innocence about you that powerfully attracts strong men and women. They want to possess you, to make you theirs - to enjoy your charms themselves, or to profit from them." "Profit? How? You have no right to profit from me! I don't belong to you, I don't belong to The Academy! If anyone, I belong to Nana!" "I'm afraid that's not the case, Lisa," Mrs. Sweet said calmly. "We looked into your background, and it seems your great-grandmother, Laura Little, never formally adopted or took legal custody of you after your parents disappeared. It's possible she wanted to avoid any contact or involvement with Family Services, especially if she intended to dress you, a boy, as a girl. You're lucky you didn't become a foster child." I struggled to absorb this. Could it be true? "Then who...?" "In the absence of parents or a legal guardian, The Sweet Academy stands in loco parentis to you, in place of a parent, and we will act as your guardian until you graduate and we place you in a suitable position, just as you agreed when you enrolled. While you are a student here, we and no one else will decide what happens to you." I frowned. "Who is 'we', ma'am?" "The three directors of The Academy, Mr. St. James, Ms. Moreau and myself. Myself, really, as I own more than fifty percent of The Academy." "Just because you own The Academy, that doesn't mean you own me!" I shouted. "It's my life! I have a say in this!" "I'm afraid that's not the case, Lisa. You're a minor," she said. "Please understand that you're not the first beautiful student we've had with no legal guardian. Your former roommate, Paris, is another. We've handled cases like yours before in a way that benefits the student as well as The Academy." My voice rose. "Parvaneh, too? Is that why we were roommates? So you could sell us both to the highest bidder?" Mrs. Sweet's voice remained steady. "Do you mean Paris? You're not using her boy's name, are you?" "No! It's her real girl's name. What's going to happen to her?" "That's not your business, Lisa. And no, we're not selling you or her or anyone. The Academy accepts donations from supporters, but donations do not affect decisions we make about individual students." "Have you made a decision about me? Am I already someone else's property?" "No. You said you wanted a voice in the decision. Would you like to belong to Mr. St. James?" "No! He's creepy. I don't like him at all." "Would you rather belong to Ms. Moreau?" "No! I don't want to belong to anyone!" "Are you sure about that?" she said. "Would you rather try to survive on your own in the world, with no one to protect you? Where will you live? How will you earn money?" The thought frightened me. I didn't know how the outside world worked. I was still a child! I'd always been taken care of. "I... I don't know, ma'am." "That's right. You don't," she said. "The outside world is a harsh place, Lisa. It would eat you alive, and spit out your corset stays. It would be far better for you to work for Ms. Moreau, or even Mr. St. James, than to try to survive on your own." Her voice softened. "Why not Ms. Moreau? Maxine is rich and can support you in style. She's a nicer person than Mr. St. James. If you agree to work for her, I'll call a board vote in the morning, and she and I will outvote Mr. St. James - even though he's offered to make a, uh, larger donation if I vote to let him have you." So, Mr. St. James was outbidding Ms. Moreau? But Mrs. Sweet would give me to Ms. Moreau if I agreed to work for her. Whatever 'work' might mean. I didn't see much alternative - I needed someone to protect me and give me a place to live. Someone like... "Can't I just leave school and go back to Nana?" "Of course not," she said. "She's not your legal guardian. Consider Ms. Moreau. You could rise in her service. As her maid, then her personal assistant, then her personal companion, and then - who knows? Maybe she'll fall in love with you and marry you." I laughed out loud. "Who'd be the husband, and who'd be the bride?" "That would be for the two of you to decide," she said seriously. ~ ~ ~ The next morning, I had to wear my evening uniform and undies from the day before, instead of one of my nice fresh day uniforms in silvery-gray satin. I went down to the kitchen to make a light breakfast - toast with butter and marmalade, fresh cut fruit, yogurt - for Mrs. Sweet and Miss Backstitch, and then simple flaky pastries and coffee to serve at Mrs. Sweet's meeting. I'd learned how to make flaky pastry in one of the few Cooking classes I'd been able to attend. I flavored half with fig jam, the rest with marmalade, and got them into the oven in plenty of time. Ms. Moreau arrived ten minutes early. "Good morning, Lisa," she said with a smile as she handed me her coat and handbag. I curtsied. "Good morning, ma'am." She gave me a nod and headed for the drawing room. I returned to the kitchen, took the pastries out of the oven, sliced them and put them on little plates. Miss Backstitch arrived at the stroke of ten and joined the others. Mr. St. James arrived ten minutes late. He scowled at me but did not speak. In the kitchen, I poured each of them a coffee made to their preference and put the cups, saucers and pastries on a silver tray. I knocked on the door of the drawing room and was told to enter. Inside the door, I made a dip rather than a curtsy, put the tray down on the sideboard and served them their coffee and pastry. I left the tray on the sideboard to remove the china and forks later, curtsied to the room and turned to leave. "Don't go, Lisa," Mrs. Sweet said. "What's this?" said Mr. St. James. "Of course the maid should go." "It affects her," Mrs. Sweet said. "Let her listen." "I agree," Ms. Moreau said. "You may sit, Miss Little," Mrs. Sweet said. "There will be no need for you to speak." I blinked. People hardly ever called me Miss Little - I was just Lisa. I chose a simple wooden chair next to the wall and sat perfectly, back straight, knees together, ankles crossed, hands folded over my apron. My taffeta petticoat rustled. I looked down and was glad to see that it covered my stocking tops. "I object," Mr. St. James said. "The maid's presence violates my right to privacy during an executive session." "Your objection is duly noted," Mrs. Sweet said. She raised her voice slightly. "I call to order a special meeting of the board of directors of The Sweet Academy. All members are present. Miss Backstitch is present as secretary. Miss Lisa Little is present as a guest. New business. I have two petitions for transfer of guardianship for the student Lisa Little. The first petition would transfer her guardianship from The Academy to Geoffrey St. James. The second petition would transfer her guardianship from The Academy to Maxine Moreau. The board will take a separate vote on each petition. Discussion." I tried to follow their arguments, but they were complicated and I had no idea what the law was. Mr. St. James seemed to argue that The Academy's charter required the board to accept the highest bid for services by Work Experience students, meaning he should get me, while Ms. Moreau argued that Work Experience rules didn't apply in my case because yadda yadda yadda, meaning she should get me. There was no one to argue that I should get me, and I'd been told not to speak. So all I could do was wait for the arguments to end and see what they decided. I did snap to attention at one point, when Mr. St. James mentioned the amount of his bid - and yes, he called it a bid, made no bones about the fact that he was trying to buy me from The Academy. For five hundred thousand dollars. I caught my breath. It was impossible. No way was I worth half a million dollars. I was one of two hundred girls at The Academy, and lots of them were as pretty as I was. Parvaneh was one. It couldn't just be my looks. Something else was at stake, but I didn't know what. I wondered how much Ms. Moreau had bid for me, and found out a few minutes later, when Mrs. Sweet mentioned a hundred-thousand-dollar difference between the bids. Did he outbid her, or vice versa? More important, if money changed hands, wasn't I entitled to some of it? Or would The Academy take it all and give me useless Work Experience class credits instead? That would be incredibly unfair! It was also what The Academy did whenever it could: use free student labor to reduce costs and increase revenue. Eventually the arguments ran out of steam. It was obvious that everyone's mind was made up. "All wishing to approve Geoffrey St. James' petition in the case of Lisa Little," Mrs. Sweet said. Mr. St. James was the only person to raise his hand. "All opposed." Mrs. Sweet and Ms. Moreau raised their hands. "The petition is denied. All wishing to approve Maxine Moreau's petition in the case of Lisa Little." Mrs. Sweet and Ms. Moreau raised their hands. "All opposed." Mr. St. James raised his hand, then slammed it on the table. "This is a bloody farce!" he shouted. Mrs. Sweet ignored him. "The petition is approved." And that's how I became Ms. Moreau's property. Technically, I was her employee, but the contract I had to sign made it clear that I would have to do pretty much anything she wanted me to do. I wasn't happy about it, but I wasn't angry, either. More like resigned - what could I do about it? At least she wasn't Mr. St. James, and it wasn't like I wanted to hurry back to my girly classes at The Sweet Academy. I didn't know Ms. Moreau, but then I didn't know any of these people. She'd smiled at me when we met. She stood up to Mr. St. James on my behalf. I had to respect her for that. "New business," Mrs. Sweet said. "I move we remove Geoffrey St. James from the board of directors and buy out his share of The Academy." "Second," Ms. Moreau said. "You can't do that!" Mr. St. James snapped. "It's illegal!" "It might be illegal in a public company, Geoffrey," Mrs. Sweet replied. "But this company is private, and I own more than half, so I can pretty much do what I want." Mr. St. James stood. "You will hear from my lawyers," he said. He strode out of the room, slamming the door behind him. Mrs. Sweet turned to Miss Backstitch. "Meeting adjourned," she said. "Bertha, will you please follow Mr. St. James to the door to make certain he leaves the house safely? And lock the door behind him?" "Yes, ma'am," Miss Backstitch said, and left the room. Mrs. Sweet and Ms. Moreau looked at me. I lowered my eyes and tried to sit up even straighter, like a good girl. I wished I was wearing something less decorative than this extremely sissy maid's uniform. "Lisa, you are no longer a ward of The Sweet Academy," Mrs. Sweet said. "Ms. Moreau is your new guardian and mistress. You will live with her now and obey her. She will decide whether to keep you enrolled in The Academy or use you for some other purpose." "Yes, ma'am," I said, and curtsied to Ms. Moreau. She was my mistress, and I was her maid. It was humiliating to belong to someone this way. It made me feel very submissive, very feminine. It also made me feel safe and secure. I now had someone to take care of me, feed me, clothe me, put a roof over my head. Ms. Moreau beamed at me. "Welcome to my household, Miss Little. I hope you will be very happy." It was so nice to be called Miss. "Yes, ma'am, I'm sure I will." "You'll come home with me now, and you'll work for me at home for the time being," she said. "We'll stop by the school. Pack as many of your things as you can, including a week's worth of your prettiest maid's outfits and undies, and we'll have the rest of it sent over to the house later. With all that's going on, you don't need to worry about attending classes for now. I'll think about that later, when you and I get settled in together." "Yes, ma'am." That answered my first three questions: I would her service right away, I would be a maid for now, and I would not be going back to school. "What about Geoffrey?" Mrs. Sweet asked Ms. Moreau. "We can't have him taking us to court. If Family Services were to drop by, or state inspectors, God help us..." "Not to worry," my new guardian said. "I have videos of Geoffrey doing - well, never mind." She glanced at me. "He won't trouble us." Videos of Mr. St. James doing what? I could imagine all sorts of icky possibilities. I didn't want to know. I just wanted him kept away from me. ~ ~ ~ Ms. Moreau took me back to The Academy, where I packed up as many of my things as I could, including my makeup and beauty supplies, and then drove us to her home in Albany. I was impressed. This was how I wanted to live. She lived downtown on the top floor of a renovated brick warehouse with a view of the Hudson River, in a gentrifying neighborhood with lots of new restaurants and shops. Her unit was half the size of Mrs. Sweet's house and would be a lot easier for a maid to maintain. The kitchen and baths were newer and nicer than Mrs. Sweet's period plumbing and appliances. There were three bedrooms, the smallest and girliest of which was mine. I had a double bed with a chiffon canopy and satin sheets, a vanity with a lighted mirror, a chest of drawers, and a walk-in closet with an armoire, two walls of clothing racks and one wall of shoe racks. More than enough to hold my things. I had just put on my nightgown over my slip when there was a soft knock at the door. "Come in," I said. Ms. Moreau entered. She had changed into a floaty long white gown and peignoir. "Hello, Lisa," she said. I curtsied to her. "Ma'am." She paced the room in a restless way. "I'm extremely happy to have you with me," she said. "But there's something I need to tell you." I grew apprehensive. Was she about to spoil everything in some way? "I love you, Lisa. If it were legal, I would love to touch you and kiss you and give you more pleasure than you've ever known. Would that bother you?" "No, ma'am." "Would you like me to do that?" "Yes, ma'am." "Would you like to do it to me?" "Yes, ma'am." "Well, we can't," she said. "This is what I need to tell you." I was stunned. "Why not?" "Because I have a conscience," she said. "It would be illegal and unethical. You're a minor. I'm an adult. You're a student. I'm a director of your school. We can't have a - a physical relationship, even if we both want to. I can't hug you, I can't kiss you, I can't touch you in a sexual way, I certainly can't make love to you. I'm probably committing a crime right now just by talking to you about it." "If I withdraw from school," I said, "does that solve the problem?" "No. I'd have to resign as a director of The Academy as well," she said. My eyes went wide. "Oh! I'd hate to make you resign!" "I'd get over it," she said dryly. "Though I do enjoy the sight of all those pretty boys in debutante dresses." "If you resigned, could we have a... a relationship?" I asked shyly. "No. You're a minor. There's only one way around that." "What is it?" "I'm going to ask you a very personal question, Lisa. It will come as a surprise. Don't answer right away. I'll explain and let you think about it." I waited, passive but alert. She went down on one knee and looked up into my eyes. Was she -? I clapped my hands to my face in shock. "Lisa, will you marry me?" Oh my God, yes! Or no! I wasn't sure, had to think. I was glad she told me not to answer right away. "I'm serious," she said. "I love you, and the only way we can be lovers is if we are married. Otherwise, it's a crime. That's the main reason, but there's another. I'm afraid Geoffrey will go to court and sue for custody of you. He'll say that your Nana - is she really your great- grandmother, by the way?" "Yes, ma'am." "He'll say she abused you for years by making you wear girls' clothes and sending you to a girls' school. He'll say that if I get custody, I'll compound the abuse by keeping you in dresses, while if he gets custody, he'll let you wear boys' clothes again and will send you to a boys' school, to undo the damage you've suffered here." I felt a flush of panic. "I'm not damaged! I don't want to go to a boys' school! And I certainly don't want to wear boys' clothes!" "If we were married, Lisa, Geoffrey would have no case. We couldn't be forced to testify in court against each other. It would give us certain legal rights." "Can we even get married?" I asked. "Legally, I mean?" "Not in New York state, but we can in Vermont. You're sixteen?" I nodded. "Think about what life would be like if we married," she said. "Neither of us would sorry about The Academy. I'd still have my job here in Albany. I'm an attorney working for the State Senate. I would be the husband and breadwinner for our household, and you would be my pretty little housewife. I would go to work every morning, and you would stay home and do all the housework. You would cook our meals, do the dishes, clean the house, shop for food, run errands, do the laundry and ironing and any other chores that need doing. "The good news is, you wouldn't have to wear a uniform anymore! Although the one you're wearing is delectable. As my housewife, you would wear pretty day dresses, housewife's dresses over rustling petticoats, with vintage foundation garments and stockings and heels, and a cute apron. Your hair would be in a pretty pageboy or flip or gamine cut, your makeup would be perfect, your body shaved and moisturized and powdered and scented." She took a deep breath. "I can just see it. I would come home from work at night with worn-off makeup, wrinkled clothes and aching feet. You would meet me at the door, serve me my favorite drink, let me freshen up, kick off my heels, change into something more comfortable, and relax until dinner is ready, and afterwards you would draw me a fragrant bath and soap my back. Oh! I'm getting excited just thinking about having a wife to take care of me." I thought about being a wife instead of a maid, and decided I'd rather be a wife. For the legal reasons, sure, but also for the opportunity to have a shred of social dignity. As a housewife, I would be the lady of the house, my spouse's hostess, and could choose what dress to wear, instead of being a maid or schoolgirl in uniform. I could call her Maxine, and call her friends by their first names instead of Miss Whoever, and be called Mrs. Lisa Moreau, the wife of Ms. Maxine Moreau. Maxine could protect me and put a roof over my head, and I could be her little homemaker and add beauty and love to her life. It was a wife's role, yes, but maybe I was meant to be Lisa the housewife for a rich and successful female husband named Max. Oh! I liked that. Me with the shameful girl's name, Lisa, and she with the strong, masterful name, Max. Oh, yes. I wanted to be taken to the Max. Of course I didn't dare say so. But! I was only sixteen, and she must be thirty at least! She could almost be my mother, and I could almost be her daughter! It would be unbalanced relationship. She would order me around - that wouldn't be so bad - but then there was a far more important question... "Ms. Moreau... Maxine... do you love me, the way you'd love someone you really wanted to marry? I mean, we barely know each other, and I'm so young! Are you doing this just to keep me away from Mr. St. James? Did he outbid you for me?" She stiffened. "You know about that?" "He mentioned it in passing. I don't think he meant to. Am I really worth half a million dollars?" She hesitated. "Geoffrey is a very wealthy man, very competitive, very headstrong. I know things about him you don't. I'd hate to see you end up with him. Far better for you to end up with me." She took my face in her hands. "I do love you, Lisa, or will once I get past the stage of complete infatuation. I want to marry you, to hug and kiss you and make love to you. I want to take you home and protect you. I will support you, and you will be my stay-at-home housewife." I thought it over. Nana would soon be gone. If I remained in school, Mr. St. James would try to get his hands on me sooner or later. I really didn't have a choice. And a big part of me liked the idea of being Maxine's wife. I wondered whether she would let me wear a wedding gown, and what she would wear. "Yes, Maxine," I said. "I will marry you and be your wife." I stood on my tiptoes and kissed her. I so wanted her to take me in her arms and kiss me back. Instead, she stepped back and folded them across her chest. "No more kisses," she said. "We have to keep this a secret until you withdraw from school and I resign from the board. It's hard. You are so very tempting." She pulled a tiny jewel case from her trouser pocket and opened it. In it were two diamond engagement rings with matching stones in identical settings. I oohed and aahed appropriately. She slid one ring onto my left ring finger, where I watched it sparkle in the light. I slid the other ring onto her left ring finger. We held out our hands and admired them for a moment, and then she took them off our fingers, put them back in the case and pocketed it. So frustrating! I cried that night, and I hoped she did, too. ~ ~ ~ I withdrew from The Academy the next morning, officially for family reasons that I declined to discuss. Knowing I had nowhere to go, Miss Backstitch kindly allowed me to stay a week in one of the guest rooms on campus, where I managed to have a private moment with Parvaneh. It was so sad! I was leaving her - as far as she knew, forever - and I couldn't tell her why, or where I would go next. I vowed to make sure she was invited to the wedding, if it ever happened. A week later, Maxine resigned from The Academy's board of directors. She told me Mr. St. James was furious when he found out, but since he was no longer on The Academy's board and I was no longer a student, he couldn't get custody of me for any amount of money. Maxine threatened to get a restraining order if he contacted me again. He never did. Before we announced our engagement, Maxine bought me a new wardrobe. New lingerie, petticoats, sleepwear and shoes, and new dresses: modern versions of the vintage fashions I loved to wear, sensible cotton shirtwaists for daytime, each with a matching apron; cocktail dresses to greet her when she got home; a form-fitting, thigh-baring LBD, for evenings out; and an ankle-length formal gown of swirling amethyst chiffon for special events. When I thought we were done shopping, she insisted on making one more stop - at a fetish-wear shop. where she had me try on three different French maid's uniforms with matching petticoats and pinafores. To my utter humiliation, she bought me the frilliest one, in pink satin, and she made me wear it out of the store. "I won't make you wear a maid's uniform very often," she said as she drove home, "but I'm thinking of giving formal dinners once or twice a month that will require the service of a maid, and I know you make a lovely one. You can alternate between your pink and black uniforms! Won't that be fun?" I wasn't keen on the idea of dressing as a maid in front of her friends, especially not in pink, but of course I would do it to please Maxine. We began wearing our engagement rings and announced our betrothal - not on social media, but only in handwritten letters, mostly to Maxine's colleagues at The Academy and her attorney's practice. As the prospective bride, I had to write them all. Only two went to my side of the aisle: to Nana, and to Parvaneh. I think Maxine must have done an amazing job of talking to the important people in advance, because I heard no whispers that she was throwing herself away on a little crossdressing nobody... which was certainly the truth. Two weeks later, we married at a lovely little chapel near Chester, Vermont. Just the two of us, Mrs. Sweet, Miss Backstitch, Ms. Abercrombie, Miss Slipstrap, and, at my insistence, Miss Parvaneh. (That was another thing I could try to fix if I joined the board of directors - stop giving new girls demeaning names like Bethany Bottom, and just use their real girly names instead.) We had the honor of meeting Maxine's mother, Marianne, a stately woman with a French accent who politely bore our campus gossip. I'd been tempted to get a big poufy wedding dress but, considering the simplicity of the occasion, instead had chosen a simple and rather inexpensive white satin A-line dress with princess seams, with no lace or other decoration except for a tiny frosting of seed pearls at the center of the neckline. On my wedding morning, after makeup and a blowout at a beauty parlor in Chester, I slipped into my dress and lingerie, white satin sandals and a bust-length veil, and carried a bouquet of tiny white roses. Maxine wore a white linen pantsuit with a white rose in her lapel. When we were ready, we drove to the chapel. A female justice of the peace - a middle-aged woman named Judith, wearing a simple navy dress with a pretty scarf - presided. Before the ceremony, she made me show my ID. She embarrassed me by asking if I was male or female. I didn't lie. She said that because I was under 18, I needed the consent of my parent or guardian in order to marry. She asked if that person was present. "I'm his legal guardian," Maxine said. "You can't give consent," Judith said. "Not if you're the one marrying him." I panicked. Now what? If Maxine couldn't consent, I had no other parent or guardian except Nana. I'd left school, so The Academy could no longer claim to be in loco parentis or whatever it was. I was afraid I'd have to call the wedding off, and then what would I do? Go to work as Maxine's maid? I gave her a frightened look. I needed Nana! Maxine ignored me. "I understand," she told Judith. She looked over her shoulder. "Mrs. Little?" I heard a woman's footsteps enter the chapel, clicking on the stone floor. I turned quickly, making my wedding gown swirl around my hips. There was Nana, hobbling up the aisle with the aid of a cane. "Nana!" I shrieked, and ran to her. I was careful not to crush her in my arms. "How...?" She raised a finger to my lips. "Later," she rasped. She identified herself to the justice of the peace as my guardian and showed her something I did not know existed: birth certificates for four generations of Littles, from her to me. "I'm the only relative he has," she said, "and I consent to this marriage." Judith examined the documents carefully and handed them back to Nana. "A bit irregular, but it'll do," she said, and proceeded with the ceremony. It was short and sweet. Two minutes later, we said 'I do' and exchanged rings and were pronounced husband and wife. Maxine raised my veil and kissed me for the first time. I took her name and became Mrs. Lisa Moreau, the spouse of Ms. Maxine Moreau. The first wave of emotion that washed over me was a profound sense of relief. I had done it! I was married to a strong woman who loved me and would support me and would keep me safe. The second wave was a profound sense of embarrassment. Here I was, a genetic male, corseted in a satin wedding gown and veil, wearing bridal makeup and an elaborate updo decorated with baby's breath and tiny white roses, while my bride reminded me of a younger Ellen DeGeneres in her perfectly tailored white linen trouser suit and tousled hair. I wondered what Maxine's mother thought of her daughter's choice of spouses, and suspected she was too polite to say. Maxine opened a bottle of bubbly - not champagne but prosecco, which she said was lighter and more fitting for an all-female party - and filled flutes for everyone. Mrs. Sweet proposed a toast to the happy couple. We emptied the flutes, and then strolled around the corner for an elegant wedding lunch at a stylish bistro, with a lot more prosecco. I drew Parvaneh aside when she had to go. We air-kissed each other's cheeks. I wanted to sink into her arms and let her ravage me with kisses, but could hardly do that at my wedding to someone else. "I forgive you, Lisa. I foresaw this from the day we met," Parvaneh said. "It's our destiny. We were fated to love and then be parted forever. I will miss you always." Tears spilled down my cheeks. I dabbed at them with a tissue, hoping my makeup wasn't ruined. "Parvaneh, I will miss you always and forever. You are the bravest and most beautiful girl I've ever known." "No, Lisa, you are the most beautiful." "No. You are," I said, and it degenerated into a silly contest of compliments until we got serious and emotional and the tears flowed. I'm sure I made a spectacle of myself. She was my first love and my first heartbreak. I felt guilty for having allowed myself to be taken away from Parvaneh and given to Maxine - not that I could have stopped it, but I was weak, I had gone along with whatever people at the school had told me to do. Maxine told me to wait while she fetched her car, leaving me with just Nana. It was then that Nana told me the family secrets that changed my world, changed everything I thought I knew. ~ ~ ~ "This might be the last time you see me, Lee and Lisa," Nana said. "There are certain things I need to tell you." "First tell me you'll live forever, Nana," I said. "I'd be lying if I did," she said. "Where do I start? I wonder if you know that I'm an alumna of The Sweet Academy." "You?" I said, shocked. "You mean -?" "Yes, Lisa. I was born a boy like you. My father left us and my mother raised me in dresses from birth - maybe in revenge, I never knew. She shipped me off to The Academy when I was twelve. I married a strong woman like your Maxine, and she bore our child, a boy. We sent him to The Sweet Academy in his turn, and... well, let's just say you're not the first boy in the Little family to be trained in the feminine arts. I have an album of old family photos of boys with Academy-trained deportment wearing lovely dresses and uniforms of their era. Your father was a nasty exception - I warned your mother not to marry him, but she didn't listen. Fortunately, his bad blood hasn't come out in you." I was stunned. Generations of Little boys turned into girls? I wasn't the first? "There's more to the story," she said. "I'm not a poor woman. I was fortunate enough to receive an inheritance early in life, and I invested it wisely, and over the years I've done well enough to become The Academy's largest financial donor. I always stayed behind the scenes and refused to join the board, but no one has done more than me to keep The Academy financially secure. So you will understand that The Academy has a lively interest in finding out who will inherit my money when I die. Do you want to know, Lisa?" I realized what she was about to say. I stopped breathing. "To you, my dear," Nana said. "All of it." I was too embarrassed to ask. "About seven million." Oh my God. "To me?" "Yes. You will become a wealthy woman when I die." She smiled. "I hope you won't be tempted to hurry me along! Mrs. Sweet, naturally, hopes you will continue to support the school in much the same way I have. That, my dear, is why she made sure you ended up under the protection of Maxine Moreau rather than Geoffrey St. James, who is a much less generous donor, and who in my opinion uses the school only to find and seduce underage girls." Eww. Disgusting! I was so glad to have escaped him. "So all this has been about money? Not love?" I said. "For Mrs. Sweet, it's all about the money. She's the only one of us who didn't try to keep you for herself." She put her arm around my waist. "It's quite different for Maxine. I've talked to her. She doesn't care about the money - she's quite well off herself. It's you, Lisa. She's infatuated with you. She thinks you're the most beautiful girl she's ever seen. Yes, she's a bit older than you, but she'll give you what you need: a strong spouse to protect you, love you, take charge of your life and give it meaning." I choked up with emotion, found it difficult to speak. "That's not all," Nana said. "The Academy had three board members. Geoffrey was removed. Maxine resigned to marry you. Mrs. Sweet is the only board member left, and she needs to nominate at least two more. Would you like to join the board of directors of The Sweet Academy?" "Me?" "When you turn eighteen. Think about it, dear," Nana said. "You would be in a position to do a great deal of good for boys like you, boys who want to live their lives in dresses and be accepted as girls." I thought about that. Maybe I could change the Academy's unfair Work Experience program so that the girls worked fewer hours, got paid for their work and spent more time in class. There was no reason that schoolgirls should have to dress in housekeeper uniforms and clean toilets and empty wastepaper bins in downtown offices at night. Her eyes twinkled. "More important... are you ready to satisfy your beautiful groom tonight?" I blushed. "Yes, Nana." "How will you bring her to climax?" So embarrassing! "With my tongue. And fingers. My... other part doesn't work very well these days." "Oh, so you're still taking your vitamins?" "They aren't vitamins, Nana." "I'm glad you know it," she said crisply. "Don't forget her nipples." "I won't! We studied it in, uh, Science for Girls..." She snorted. "In your room at night, you mean. Ha! You and your delectable Persian girlfriend." I took a deep breath. "Nana, Parvaneh is special to me. She's brave and strong and good. I'll tell you her story sometime, but believe me, she deserves your respect. What's happening to her? Can you protect her?" "She is perfectly safe, now that Mr. St. James is gone." Nana laid her hand upon my forearm. "But you are married to Ms. Maxine Moreau now, so let me give you some advice before you go join her. Your job is to make her happy. If she is happy, you will be happy. Let her wear the pants in the family, be the husband, earn the money, make the decisions. You are now her pretty little housewife, a role I hope you will embrace. Your job is to obey her, spend her money, and bring beauty and pleasure to her life. I only wish you could bear her a child." "Oh, Nana!" I tried to hide my inward shudder. To get all big like that, waddling around, going through labor, screaming in pain... ugh! "But Maxine could bear a child," she said, "and by the end of her pregnancy, your breasts could be fully grown. With the right hormones, you could nurse the baby and become its mother and raise it as a girl, and dress it in the cutest little dresses, with ribbons and bows and ruffles and lace." "Ooh!" I moaned. I felt my nipples erect. I wondered if a nursing baby's lips would feel as good as a roommate's lips. "Meanwhile," Nana said, "would you like your Parvaneh to get a job at The Sweet Foundation? It's the charitable arm of The Academy. The office is on campus, just across from Administration. She's qualified. Very high grades." "Oh, Nana! That would be wonderful!" "Mrs. Sweet is looking for a director of marketing in Asia. There's a big demand for trained Sweet Academy girls there. You might have to wait on Parvaneh as a maid at one of Maxine's dinners. I'm sure she'll be invited - Max thinks very highly of her, and knows you do, too. Max might even invite her to stay overnight and make you serve as her lady's maid." "Oh, yes!" I said. "I would wear my pink uniform and curtsy to her and give her hair a hundred strokes every night." "I'll bet you'd give her a hundred strokes, you little tramp! Dreaming of Miss Persia while Max is waiting for you! Go on, you! Scoot!" I laughed and thanked Nana, whom I loved more than anyone else alive, for everything she'd done for me, and made her my prettiest curtsy. Outside, I found Max parked at the curb. Like a gentleman, she got out, opened the door for me and helped me and my dress into the car. As she drove us back to our wedding suite at the B&B, my excitement rose. Max and I had been so good, controlled our passions for so long, and now it was time for our reward. I was so looking forward to not being a good girl! I was ready to be bad. I was ready do my wifely duty to my Max, with tongue and fingers and whatever else she wanted. I looked forward to starting my life with her, making a proper home of her luxury loft overlooking the Hudson, getting to know Max's friends and serving as her hostess, Mrs. Lisa Moreau. I looked forward to practicing my new signature for the invitations and little notes I would now be writing to friends and other hostesses. Back in the bridal suite, Max unzipped me and helped me out of my wedding dress, petticoats, sandals and panties, but told me to leave on my corset, stockings and veil. She picked me up, carried me to the suite's king-size bed and laid me gently on its satin sheets. "Now I can touch you without breaking the law," she said, looking down at me. She reached inside my corset cup and tweaked my left nipple with her finger. I quivered. She pulled the nipple out of the cup and licked it. I shuddered in delight. "And I can kiss you," she said. She bent over and kissed me, gently at first, then with her tongue. Her full weight descended on me. I wriggled in pleasure, panting with need, too breathless to reply. I lay there scantily clad in my white bridal satin, nylon and tulle, all soft and submissive, looking up at my Max, waiting for her to take my virginity however she wished, ready to pleasure her any way she wished. She whispered in my ear, and I slid down the bed. Modesty forbids me from saying more of a night I will remember always. The End