Nellie

by Princess Pervette

"You know, you'd look good in drag," Harriet told me one

evening.

We had been living together for about a month, and she had

never mentioned such a thing before.

"Have you ever tried wearing drag?" she pursued. "You've got

the face for it, and that's half the battle."

The whole idea, as I thought of it, struck me as twisted and

sick. But I was at the height of my rebellious period in those days,

when anything sick and twisted had a certain appeal to me. So

naturally I thought it might be worth a try.

"No, I never have. But it sounds as if it might be fun to

try.... Sure, why not?"

I thought about it the next day at work, and the more I

thought about it, the more it appealed to me. The idea of abandoning,

or at least temporarily setting aside, my masculinity seemed kinky and

captivated my imagination.

So that evening we tried it, or rather, I tried it. First,

she gave me a pair of pink panties, and I put them on. Then she gave

me a garter belt and showed me how to put that on. Then I rolled on

a pair of nylons. The bra came next; she showed me how to fasten it

and then rotate it so the cups were in front. We used handkerchiefs

stuffed into the to give me a nice pair of boobs. Harriet's clothes

weren't a perfect fit, but I was able to get into them pretty well.

She found a dress that was loose enough about the waist to fit me, and

she put makeup on my face.

After all that, you expect me to say I was thrilled to be

dressed in women's clothes, right?

Wrong. It was a failure.

The clothes were uncomfortable. They were a little

uncomfortable physically, because the fit wasn't as good as it might

be, but they were terribly uncomfortable mentally, because I didn't

feel right in them. I felt silly wearing them. And when Harriet had

me look at myself in the mirror, I didn't see a pretty girl; I saw

a damned fool. Here was this man, obviously a man, with a bunch of

women's clothes on him and his face full of paint, looking silly and

embarrassed.

"Well, this was an interesting possibility," I told her, "but

it isn't going to work."

"How do you know? You've only tried it once."

"It just doesn't feel right for me. I feel ridiculous and I

look ridiculous."

"Well, you would look more convincing if I had a wig...."

"No. I can tell; it just isn't going to work."

I got back into my regular clothes with a feeling of relief

and, I must confess, disappointment. I had been sort of looking

forward to becoming a crossdresser. Women's clothes came in such a

wonderful variety and looked so great.... But, dull and uninteresting

as my own clothes were, I was still relieved to get back in them.

And that would have been the end of it, if Harriet had been

less persistent and resourceful.

The next evening, she said, "I wonder what it would be like if

we went about this more gradually."

"Went about what?" The drag experiment was by that time a

closed chapter in my own mind.

"Dressing you up. You really have potential. You could pass

if you went out on the street. I hate to see that go to waste."

"Harriet, I'm willing to try anything once. Well, almost

anything. But not twice. If something doesn't work, it doesn't work,

that's all."

"I think we tried to do too much too soon. Too suddenly."

She paused. "I wonder if you would just do a little favor for me."

"What?"

"Wear these under your clothes for two weeks." She held up a

pair of white panties. "I got these for you today. They'll fit you

better than the ones you tried last night. And nobody's going to know

you have them on. Do it, just to oblige me. And after two weeks, you

can stop if you want to."

I sighed. I already knew it would be hopeless, but I knew

better than to argue. "Okay," I said.

So, the next morning when I got dressed, I put the white

panties on instead of my regular briefs. They did fit me, and I

noticed with surprise that they accommodated my male parts quite well.

When I mentioned this to Harriet, she said, "Of course. I knew what

kind to get. Do you think you're the only guy I've ever dressed? I

put every boyfriend in dresses sooner or later." That was news to me.

The panties felt funny going on, but I noticed right away how soft and

smooth they felt. I had been too nervous to notice that the first

time. They seemed...well, kind of neat. That should have told me

something.

Once I had them on, I found I didn't notice them much. They

didn't feel that different from my ordinary underwear. But I was

conscious of them all day, and although, as Harriet had said, nobody

could tell I was wearing them, I felt ill at ease, as if my trousers

were somehow transparent--as if, at any moment, someone might come up

and say, "Hey...are those *panties* you're wearing under your suit?"

She had gotten me several pairs, and the next day's pair were

pale blue. I was surprised at how good it felt to put them on. My

nervousness and discomfort were beginning to fade, which was clearly

just what Harriet had in mind.

The third day's pair were pink with little red flowers on

them. Lace around the legs. Harriet was carefully sequencing the

panties, you see: first white, then blue, then pink with flowers:

day by day, steadily more feminine. And her scheme was working: I

realized that I was beginning to enjoy wearing them.

In fact, I came to enjoy them so much that by the end of two

weeks I was ready to throw out all my jockey shorts. But I didn't. I

was in two contradictory states of mind: part of me insisted that this

was just a temporary experiment, just a silly little thing I was doing

to please Harriet; another part of me didn't want the experiment to

end.

****

It didn't end, either. At the end of the two weeks, Harriet

unwrapped a garter belt and nylons.

"Oh no!" I objected. "I've done you a favor, and I'll admit

that the panties feel pretty good. Better than I had expected. And

I'll admit that nobody can tell I'm wearing them. Even when I pee,

all I need to do is pull the waistband down. But I'm not wearing

women's stockings to work! Those will show!"

"Of course they will, Bill, and I wouldn't dream of making

you wear these to work. But just wear them around here evenings. To

please me?"

So I took off my pants and put on the garter belt and the

nylons. I noticed for the first time how they enhanced the appearance

of my legs, shaping and coloring them. I had been too nervous that

first night to notice this. I've never thought of myself as an

Adonis, but I always thought I had pretty good legs--for a man; the

nylons made them look great. But just the same, I was glad to put my

trousers on over them so they wouldn't show.

So for the next two weeks, I wore nylon stockings around the

apartment evenings. And it felt good to have them on my legs, I must

admit. I should have seen the way things were going one evening when

I stopped and admired how I looked for a few minutes before putting

my pants back on. My legs were soooo sleek and smooth and shapely in

them, and I appreciated how the colored fabric--they were taupe, I

remember--darkened my legs and shaded them.

The following Monday morning, Harriet had a pair of opaque

black nylons for me.

"If you wear these, the part that shows under your trousers

and over your shoes will look just like regular men's dress socks.

Nobody will be the wiser."

I put them on without a word. And once or twice at work, when

I knew I was alone, I pulled up my trouser legs to see how the nylons

looked on me. They looked really pretty. Then I realized that I was

at work, in my office, with panties and a women's garter belt and

stockings on under my suit. I blushed furiously, even though nobody

was around, and let the trouser legs fall back into place.

I must have been another two or three weeks wearing these

things under my regular clothes. Evenings Harriet would ask me to

change into lighter-colored nylons, but during the day it was opaque

black or opaque navy.

Then one evening she said, "That's a pretty boring-looking

shirt you're wearing. Here: try this." It was a white silk blouse.

I hesitated. Then I figured that I was already wearing panties and

nylons under my clothes, so this didn't amount to that much of an

addition to all the rest. And it didn't look *that* different from

a shirt, except for the ruffles. I took off my shirt and put on the

blouse. I had some trouble with the buttons, because the blouse

buttoned the wrong way. I think that brought home to me more than

anything else just what I was had on. And although I still had a T-

shirt on underneath it, I noticed the cool feel of the silk on my arms

when I put it on.

So now she had me wearing panties, nylons, and a woman's

blouse. And I must admit that the uncomfortable feeling I had had

the very first time she dressed me didn't return.

In fact, I realized that I was beginning to like wearing these

things. A lot. It was about this time that I threw out all my jockey

shorts. Something inside me said, "This means you're going to wear

panties all the rest of your life." That bothered me briefly until I

told myself that I could always go out and buy new jockeys if I wanted

to.

Nothing changed after that for a month or two. Then the

weather began to get warm, and one Saturday morning Harriet said,

"You know, it's beginning to be shorts weather."

I could see what was coming. I said, as casually as I could,

"Yes. I'll have to shop for some this afternoon."

She had anticipated me. "Here, try these on." She had gotten

me a pair. Women's shorts, in a light blue color.

"Put your black nylons on first. They'll contrast nicely with

the blue of the shorts. And they'll show off your legs."

She had almost done it. Except for my shoes, I was dressed

from head to toe in women's clothes. (I had stopped wearing T-shirts

under my blouses when the weather turned warm.) And I was liking it.

Every weekend after that, I wore an ensemble along those lines. But

Harriet wasn't finished yet, by any means. The next Saturday I was

going to wear a pair of dark blue shorts with a pair of light tan

nylons. But Harriet stopped me.

"Your legs look ugly in those."

"You said I had nice legs...."

"You have. You have terrific legs. They make me jealous.

They would make any woman jealous. But all that hair...! Why don't

you try shaving them just once, to see how they look that way? And

don't tell me they'll notice in the office. They won't."

So I went back into the john and shaved my legs. It was a

big job, because the razor kept getting clogged with hair. I'd make

one swipe with the razor and have to rinse the hair out of it. But

finally I was done, and I saw how strangely pale my legs looked with

no hair on them. But when I rolled on the nylons....wow! What a

sensuous feeling, with nothing between the hose and my skin! And

the way they looked...I had never noticed before how the hair showed

through the hose, but I noticed its absence now, and the improvement

was striking. That evening, as we sat and read, I kept looking down

at my legs and admiring how they looked. And at times I would run my

hands over my ankle and feel how nice the nylon felt.

"You know, if you take your shoes off, you can put both your

legs on the seat beside you," Harriet pointed out. "It might be more

comfortable." I was on the sofa. So I tried that and noticed how it

made my legs more noticeable. Then it struck me: this was the way

women sat on sofas.

Harriet's plan was working. I had gotten to the point now

where I wondered what she would want me to do next. In fact, I was

impatient to know. And eager to try. I had come a long way since

that time last Fall when she had dressed me and made me feel so

foolish.

What she had next, a couple of weeks later, was a "skort."

This was a pair of shorts made with a piece of material that went

right across the front, so it looked like shorts from the back but

a skirt in the front. It was her way of gradually getting me into

skirts. I almost grabbed it out of her hand in my eagerness to try

it on.

Along with the skort came my first pair of women's shoes.

They were a pair of white pumps. Low-heeled, but unmistakably pumps.

This was now a degree of feminization beyond even what we had tried

last Fall, because back then she had had no shoes that I could wear.

Wearing my skort, a dark gray blouse, off-black nylons, and my

new pumps, I came into the living room and said,

"How do you like your girl, Harriet?" Then I thought: Did I

really call myself that? Well, yes, that was how I felt.

"You're *gorgeous*, Girl! Really terrific!"

And from that time on, whenever we were alone, Harriet always

addressed me as "Girl." I realized that loved it. I had come to love

being a girl. Well...looking like one, anyway.

Things moved swiftly after that. Harriet got me a wig, in a

brunette color that matched my hair and my coloring generally. That

evening she had me shave a second time and then applied makeup, very

slowly and very carefully. Then she put on the wig and combed it for

me.

I suddenly caught sight of myself in the mirror. This was

the first time since last Fall that I had looked at my reflection

carefully. Back then, I had seen a damned fool. This evening, I saw

a girl. A pretty girl.

"You look fantastic, Girl! Now we need a name for you. Bill

isn't going to do. How about Nell? Would you mind being Nell?"

"Er...well, the first thing that makes me think of is Nellie.

And when I was in college a guy who was nellie was a fag."

"In those clothes you aren't a guy who is nellie. You're a

girl who is Nellie. And now that the topic has come up--have you ever

made it with a guy?"

"Uh...well...if you must know, I did have a sort of a, a bit

of a...little fling with a roommate one term. But then I moved out,"

I added, hastily. It had been somewhat more than a fling, but I

wasn't about to admit that.

"A sort of a bit of a little fling. I think we'll stick with

Nellie. You never know what might come up. But I'll call you Nell.

When I'm not calling you Girl."

Her plan had worked. It had taken eight months to do it, but

it worked. I was completely turned on to women's clothes.

Skirts were a revelation. Harriet got me a light but fairly

full skirt in a floral pattern...delicious! I loved the way it felt

on my legs. I would never have dreamed the faint swish of my nylons

against the skirt could be so lovely. I loved the way it would flair

out as I turned back and forth. It was fairly hot weather just then,

but for a week I wore nothing at home but that lovely skirt. And at

work, I would sometimes shut my eyes for a moment and think of my

skirts and how they looked on me and felt on me. A skirt and a pair

of nice nylons...heaven for me. And I would wish I were home so I

could wear them. I imagined a bumper sticker: "I'D RATHER BE WEARING

A SKIRT."

I began to notice what girls were wearing--well, I had always

done that, but now I would see something and wonder how it would look

on me. And I began to appreciate the marvellous variety in women's

clothes. I had a gray suit and a brown suit. I had sports jackets

in various tweeds--blue, light gray, dark gray. I had a blue blazer.

And that was it. The only real color in my male wardrobe was in my

ties. And trousers...short pants, long pants, chino or denim, cotton

or wool. Nothing more. Trousers in a print...? Unheard of! And,

looking through the catalogs Harriet got from mail-order places, I

saw how much wider a selection women had. Short skirts, long skirts,

every width from hobble skirts to full skirts, even one, I noticed,

that was completely circular if laid on the floor. Solids and prints

of every color and every description. Dresses or skirts and blouses

or sweaters. And underwear...! Every conceivable kind of panties and

bras and slips. And shoes: loafers, pumps, boots, ballet shoes, you

name it. There it all was: a wonderful world of style and fashion,

waiting for me to explore it.

****

And explore it I did. I would see a dress or a skirt in one

of her catalogs and think, "I wonder how that would look on me," or

"That looks so comfortable. I'll bet it would be great for casual

wear." And I started studying the fashion section in the Sunday

paper. Harriet would guide me in my selections: "No, that won't work

on you. Yes; get that; it's You!" I set aside a certain amount of

money each pay period in what I called my "Drag Fund." I didn't dare

go shopping in stores, but there was no problem getting things from

Harriet's catalogs.

I would come home from work, and the first thing I would do

was shed my boy clothes and put on something pretty. A dress, or a

sweater and skirt.

For my birthday, Harriet got me a pair of breast forms. When

I saw some in a Freddie's catalog later, I was shocked at how much she

must have spent. "It's time you had some proper boobs, Girl. You'll

never be able to go out on the street with a chest that flat, and

hankies just don't do it." I had never thought of going out en femme;

this was strictly fun at home.

That night, Harriet lent me one of her dresses to wear. I

just felt so good in it! I was swirling it about me when she said,

"I hope you realize that's the same dress I put on you last

Fall. Remember?"

I looked down at it. Yes. Except for the fact that the

nylons and underwear were mine and not hers, this was the exact same

getup that had made me feel so ridiculous last October.

"I was right. We tried to do too much too quickly. And Girl,

do you look smashing! I've never had a boyfriend who dressed up as

nicely as you do. You could go out on the street like that and nobody

would read you."

That made me nervous. That was the second time--no, the third

time, come to think of it--that she had mentioned going outdoors en

femme. That was a little too public for me. I didn't like to

contemplate what might happen if I were "read," as she put it, by a

gang of tough teenagers.

We did go out together shortly afterward, but I was dressed

in my regular men's clothes. Our errand was getting my ears pierced.

Harriet had found a place where they did good, professional work. It

was a bit painful, but not as much as I had feared, and my ears healed

quickly.

****

Harriet's next step was to teach me to act like a girl.

"You make a better girl than any other boyfriend I've ever

dressed up," she reminded me. "I think you should make the most of

it. But that means acting like a girl and not just looking like one."

She had a point. I was a little like Eliza Doolittle in

Shaw's "Pygmalion"; I looked like a girl as long as I didn't move

or say anything. The moment I got up or walked, the illusion was

shattered. The only girlish things I knew to do were smoothing my

skirt before I sat down and sitting with my legs tucked up next to me.

Training in femininity was going to be a long, slow process, but by

this time I was seriously getting into looking like a girl, and I

was also a little curious to see how far I could go. Surely at some

point, I thought, I would meet with internal resistance from my

natural maleness.

She started with the use of the arms and hands. How to hold

things, how to reach for things. How to hold my head and when to tilt

it gently to one side. Smiling more often. The use of the eyes: when

to make eye contact and when to avoid it. Then how to sit down and

stand up. I thought I knew that, but there was more to be learned.

How to walk--smaller steps and less weight on the heels. We spent a

lot of time on that, because you can tell a man in drag a block away

from the way he walks. I had to learn to walk more slowly, with a

sort of gliding motion (I have always been a fast and purposeful

walker), and to suppress the slight swagger that almost every man has

when he walks. She got me shoes with higher heels now, and I had to

learn to walk in them. They changed the way I moved my hips, and that

helped. The details were endless.

She also trained me in the use of makeup and how to apply it.

She got me a book, called "Color me Beautiful," which showed me how to

tell what shades looked good on me, and what and how much to wear at

different times of day.

She had me talk at a higher pitch (but not a falsetto) and

in a breathier voice. And she worked on my vocabulary and the way I

phrased things. Less declarative, more tentative. But, in the end,

always back to the way I walked and moved.

"Suppose we put you back in your boy clothes. Do you think

you could pass for a girl wearing them? That's the ultimate test,

you know. Not just being in women's clothes, but being a woman in

whatever you wear."

Looking ahead for a moment, I can tell you that in fact, more

often than not, I go out in what I think of as "boy-clothes femme,"

and if I just walk the right way and move the right way, people

address me as "Ma'am" and "Lady" and "Miss." I routinely shop for my

dresses and undies this way.

****

That evening, I thought this was what she had in mind: getting

me to go out en femme. But she had something else in mind. A couple

of days later, she said,

"There's a friend of mine at work who's curious about you." I

turned pale. Had she been telling other people about my dressing? I

didn't like that at all. She went on, "...and he wants to meet you."

HE?? "Mind if we have him over for drinks and dinner to-morrow?"

I minded very much. But I didn't want to argue with her. We

rarely argued, and in those days I was feeling too grateful to her for

getting me into all this to want to fight. And, I must admit, I was a

little curious myself how some other person would see me.

Bob and Harriet came straight from work the next evening. He

was a tall, good-looking blond guy. I had had the afternoon off, and

I used it to prepare for my debut. I had chosen a dark blue dress

with matching pumps, light nylons, a gold chain around my neck, and

gold earrings. I had shaved a second time that day before applying my

makeup, and I finished everything off with a bit of Arpege.

I found out just how good Harriet's training had been when

Bob, introduced to me, said, "How do you do, Nell?" and then turned to

Harriet and asked, "Where's Bill? Isn't he here?" He hadn't known I

was a man, and he looked genuinely shocked when Harriet said that I

was Bill. He hadn't realized.

Drinks were nice, and dinner was nicer. After dinner, we

lingered over coffee and brandy, when suddenly Harriet said, "I just

realized--I have to get breakfast for to-morrow! I had completely

forgot about it," and disappeared.

Harriet never forgot anything. I wondered what was in the

wind. I quickly found out as Bob moved over to the sofa next to me.

"Nell, you're one good-looking girl, do you know that?"

I gave him my sweetest smile and batted my eyelashes, the way

Harriet had taught me.

"How long have you and Harriet been together?"

"Oh...a little more than a year."

He proceeded to draw me out. How we got along, how close we

were. Somehow, in the course of this conversation, his arm brushed my

shoulders. I wondered: did Harriet have this in mind? But he was an

attractive man, and I was feeling more like a girl than usual. Maybe

that was the result of the cocktails, the wine at dinner, and the

brandy we were sipping now. I leaned a bit closer to him, and he drew

me to his side.

"You smell nice, Nell. Nice old-fashioned name--Nell. I like

it. Nell. Nellie."

I cuddled up more closely. He put his hand on my chin (was I

glad I had had that extra shave!) and turned my head to his.

The kiss was dreamy.

And it was followed by a second kiss. It was harder than

the first one, and I felt his tongue. I opened my lips softly and

welcomed him in. Things moved quickly after that, and it seemed like

only moments later that I was welcoming something else into my mouth.

I had never done that before. When I had had my "fling" with

my roommate back in college, it had always been he who sucked me off.

My mouth was virgin (as was my ass, too, for that matter). I hadn't

known how a cock would feel in my mouth. With Bob it was like sucking

on a bar of steel. And I was thrilled when he ran his hands over my

shoulders and called me his girl as I pleasured him.

Harriet took a suspiciously long time, considering she was only

going for groceries and that there was a shop only a block away. She

certainly chose an...interesting...moment for her return, though. She

managed to arrive just as Bob was coming into my mouth. I was just

gulping it down when I heard the door.

I was sure she had set this up. But even so, I was half

worried that maybe she would make a scene. But no; all she said was,

"Was she as good as you hoped?" and Bob said,

"Harriet, believe me: she was terrific! She gives the best

head in the New York Metropolitan area!"

Bob left about half an hour later, but not without a farewell

kiss at the door. Kisses, actually, but he gave Harriet just a

polite, perfunctory buss, and then he held me closely in a long and

lingering embrace.

"We've got to do this again," he murmured in my ear just

before releasing me. I was breathless from his kiss and could only

whisper, "Yes."

We talked about it, Harriet and I, for the rest of the

evening. She was curious to know what it had been like, how I had

felt about it, and what we had actually done together.

"Harriet, that's so indelicate!" I exclaimed. "What do you

want?...a blow-by-blow description?" and then I blushed, realizing the

double meaning of the word "blow." Harriet picked it up, too.

"Blow by blow?" She giggled. "Just how many times did you

blow him, anyway, Girl? You're a fast worker, I must say!"

But the experience told me something about myself. Something

quite unexpected. I had liked it. It was like night and day compared

with my first try at drag a year or more previously. I hadn't

enjoyed that at all, and it took Harriet's long program of gradual

acclimatization to turn me around. But I had known I was going to

like sex with Bob from the moment he drew me to him and cuddled me.

Nevertheless, I was still worried about Harriet.

"Harriet...you aren't jealous...? I mean, you pretty

obviously set this up, with that story about breakfast...."

"Yes, I set it up. And I set you up. And no, I'm not

jealous. If I were, it would be my own fault, after all. But there's

something I never told you. I told you once that I always put my

boyfriends in dresses. I didn't tell you that all my boyfriends end

up in bed with other men. It's something I like to make happen. If

you're going to dress like a woman, you should have sex like a woman,

at least once. So you can have the whole experience. I like to

watch, too, when I can. You looked terrific kneeling before him in

just your bra and panties. I wish I could have taken a picture of

you."

"You've taken pictures of...guys?"

"No. That's still an unfulfilled ambition of mine. I wish I

had a collection of photos of my various boyfriends doing guys,

though."

Knowing Harriet was proving to be an educational experience,

in more ways than one. Her last words, when we went to bed, summed up

the entire evening:

"Welcome to womanhood, Nellie."

****

Harriet and I broke up about three months later. We had been

drifting apart, especially since I had been dating some friends Bob

had introduced me to. But it came as a shock when Harriet announced

that she was moving in with Bob.

"Well, he's your successor, you see. We've been...well...

seeing quite a lot of each other. And in any case, I'm sorry to say

it, but you and I are through. It's fun turning my boyfriends into

girlfriends, but once I've done it, I lose interest in them. And

when I've found the new boyfriend, I like to see if I can get him

to use the old one as his girl. It sort of marks the transition."

She pondered. "Some time, maybe I'll meet a man I can't

feminize. Then I suppose I'll marry him."

I stared at her. "You're a monster, you know."

"Oh, come on, Nellie. Think what you've gained from all

this. Learning to love dressing up, and learning to be good at

it. Learning to pass as a girl. And discovering that you're a

talented cocksucker, too. I don't think you have had your last gay

experience, Girl, not by a long sight. Actually, most of my men

thank me once they realize what I've done for them."

In the end, the parting was fairly amicable. And afterward,

I would occasionally run into them at parties, and Harriet and I

always hugged and kissed. (And, depending on the kind of party it

was, sometimes Bob and I kissed, too, especially if I was there en

frmme. And a few times we got together and did a little more than

hugging and kissing.) And Harriet had been right. She had taught me

how to be a girl. She had opened a whole new world to me: the world

of skirts, dresses, blouses, pretty sweaters, lovely undies, makeup,

costume jewelry, and sweet colognes. It's a world I've come to love.

And although women are still my first love and always will be,

for me there's a special sweetness in being dressed and in the arms of

a nice man who's using me as his girl.

Princess Pervette

March, 1997