> The St. Patrick's Day Masquerade

> by Paula Thomas

When I attended college, I had the good fortune of living on

campus. Part of the social experience was eating and otherwise

associating with selected members of my dormitory and our sister

dorm. Over the years, we had established a dining ritual which

persisted through our entire college years. Every night at 5:00

pm, the male bunch and the female bunch would que up at the

dining hall to take up a table right along the entrance line to

the cafeteria.

Early in March, somebody mentioned that St. Patrick's Day was

approaching. During the onsuing conversation, it was suggested

that it would be cute if one of the guys put on a kilt and came

to dinner in it. It was readily agreed that that would be a good

gag, so then it became a question of who would become the

gagster. Since I had a gift for voices (the Brogue) and was

reasonably slender, I became the logical choice.

I followed the girls back to the dorm, whereupon one of them

raced upstairs to gather the necessary articles. After several

minutes, she returned with a paper bag filled with things.

Catching her eye, I deflected suggestions that the group unpack

the bag and inspect the articles. Instead, I took it back to my

room and opened it privately.

Evidently Linda (the girl who had volunteered to supply the kilt)

had more grandious plans. In addition to the kilt, she had packed

panties, panty hose, panty girdle, a full slip, brassiere and a

blouse. I walked back to her dorm and buzzed her room.

"Linda, why did you put those other things in the bag?"

"I thought they should be. After all, a kilt is a woman's

garment, isn't it?

"Not in Scotland, it's not. Maybe I should come up."

I went up to Linda's room. She and Brenda let me in and closed

the door behind me. Linda spoke first.

"We thought that you might be interested in a little more

elaborate prank than dressing up for St. Paddy's Day."

"Such as what."

"Well, for starters, how would you like to spend the night in our

dorm."

Before she could yell "curlers" I was back in my room planning

the next day. We modified the original plan to include a costume

change at 10:00 am. I was to show up for breakfast wearing the

kilt, knee socks, starched shirt and blazer at 7:30 am. At 9:15,

after my first class, I was to return to my dorm and shave myself

from armpit to foot. I would then put on the panties, pantyhose,

and girdle Linda that provided and show up at her room.

Right at 9:45, I buzzed Linda. She led me up to her room and sat

me down on her roommate's bed. Motioning me to remove my outer

clothes, she surveyed what she had to work with. Obviously her

first task was my face. I had not shaved off my mustache, nor for

that matter even gone out of my way to shave particuarly close.

She first attacked my mustache, probing at it with a device that

would first sting and then tug at the individual hairs. When she

was done with the mustache, Linda dove into my eyebrows.

While not satisfied with my beard, Linda and I agreed that we

could work on that at some later date. Instead she turned her

attention to making do with what she had. Uncovering an

impressive array of cosmetics, Linda began to dab and pat all

over my face. Most of her ministrations concentrated about the

eyes. When she was done there, she moved down to the lips. After

nearly two hours, she was done there also.

It was approaching the noon hour but Linda didn't feel that we

were even remotely ready. The biggest problem now was the hair.

Although my hair was plenty long enough, it had no order to it.

Linda fetched a tub of water and poured some chemicals into it.

Tipping my head back into the water, she lathered my hair

thoroughly. After wrapping my hair in a towel she went down the

hall to fetch a new tub of water. One more session in the tub to

rinse out the soap. Another towel. More water. Next creme rinse,

another towel, more water. Now came the scissors. A snip here, a

snip there. Finally, she rolled my hair in 1" rollers.

After what seemed an eternity, she un-rolled my hair and brushed

it out. Apparently satisfied with what she had created, she

turned her attenton to what I was wearing. I had taken care of

the delicate portion of my undergarments, so she first addressed

my bosom. Nothing creative here, she simply hooked a

Cross-My-Heart bra across my heart and stuffed it full of two

water filled balloons.

Next, she fetched the slip that she had originally packed with

the kilt. That fit just fine. Next the blouse. Real trouble.

Although the blouse was big enough around, the sleeves were

definitely too short. Linda went out scouting for a longer

sleeved blouse. I scouted my future dorm room.

Linda's former roommate had flunked out; not an uncommon

occurance. That left a desk, 6 feet of closet space and a 5

drawer chest to fill. The bed was identical to the one in my

room, a pull-out cot with a storage space in the headboard. A

cruise through Linda's closet revealed pretty much what I already

knew, she owned few dresses. Mostly her closet was filled with

blouses and skirts. Her dresser was real run of the road;

panties, bras, pantihose all thrown in to one drawer and the rest

of a college student's life thrown into the other fourhdzawers.

Linda returned with a blouse, and the blouses's owner, Gwen. It

was very lovely, ivory in color with ruffles down the front and

at the throat and wrists. I tried it on and it fit perfectly.

Next the kilt. Linda discovered what I had found out this

morning. The waistband on the kilt was about 1" shy of making it

around my waist. I had just extended the buttonhole with a piece

of string but Linda wasn't having part of that. She disappeared

again while Gwen and I talked about what classes we were taking,

that sort of stuff. In a few minutes, Linda appeared holding a

"waist whittler", you know the tight elastic band that hooks

around the waist.

I stood up and pulled the slip up around my chest so that Linda

could put it on me. After hooking it into the tightest eyelets,

we tried the kilt again. This time it fit with a couple of

fingers of slack. I tried on some of Linda's shoes but they were

way too tight. Gwen offered to loan me a pair of pumps since she

took a larger size than Linda. Gwen's shoes fit pretty well, not

that much of a surprise since she was easily as tall as my 5'10"

and probably close to the same weight.

It was only 4 pm and the dining hall didn't open until 5, so

Linda and I went down to the dorm's lounge. Gwen had some things

to do so she went back to her room. In the lounge, which

mercifully was deserted, Linda deliberately had me walking to get

used to the 2" pumps that Gwen loaned me and to allow her to

critique my movements. After the hour was up, she seemed

reasonably satisfied, so we went upstairs to fetch a couple of

coats and go over to the dining hall.

She had borrowed a meal ticket from one of her dorm mates to

avoid a problem at the dining hall (the meal tickets are coded by

dorm). We sailed through the check-in and went directly to the

cafeteria line. After going through the line, we walked over to

our regular table. Both the guys and girls were stunned. It took

a few minutes for them to stop staring and get back to their

meals.

After several minutes of eating and contemplation, the

conversation naturally got around to me. Everyone was amazed at

how believable I looked as a girl. Everyone complimented Linda on

what a fantastic job she had done. I could sense that a couple of

the guys were a little uncomfortable; perhaps wondering if I was

a fag and would come jump their bones in the middle of the night.

Most of the girls seemed intrigued and a little jealous of me.

After dinner, we normally gathered our book and went to the

library to study. This was as much a social ritual as practical.

It allowed us to interact with fellow classmates as the need

arose, permitted us of reference materials that we certainly

didn't have in our dorm rooms and allowed some of us to engage in

our favorite hobby, people watching.

Some of the regular bunch begged off when, at Linda's insistance

I agreed to continue to wear her kilt. On the other hand some of

the girls asked to come along. All told, seven of the group went

to the library to study for a few hours. The night at the library

was fairly uneventful. My only problem was remembering to keep my

knees together.

The University had a regular program of "artsy" (ie. unsellable)

movies that they would show in one of the auditoriums on campus

every night. This night they were showing Fellini's 8 1/2.

Someone suggested that we try to take in this flick, which met

with general approval. The movie started at 8 pm, which was only

30 minutes away so we left the library to drop off our books and

other unnecessary baggage.

Once at the auditorium, I took special pains to be seated between

Linda and Carol, a girl who I especially admired and who seemed

to be intrigued by my masquerade. The movie was quite an

experience. Fellini's flicks are a bit on the weird side to begin

with, but this one seemed to explore new limits. In addition,

this was a weird night, with many distractions. I had one hand in

Linda's lap and another in Carol's. Carol had a hand in my lap

finding out just what kind of man I was. I found it very hard to

concentrate on the movie.

The movie ended at 9:50 pm which left us about an hour before the

dorms would lock-up. We decided to go to the Student Center for a

soda before returning to the dorm. Around 10:45, we walked the

short distance to the dorm and Linda and I went up to her room.

After taking off our coats and otherwise settling-in, I also took

off the kilt and the waist wittler. I left on the blouse, slip,

etc. since I was at least half artificial and I didn't really

know what the rest of the girls in the dorm knew or what they

were going to be told. Certainly Linda, Gwen, Carol and the rest

of the dining-hall-bunch knew who I was, but whether it

was/was-supposed-to-be general knowledge was an unknown.

By 11:30, the activity within the dorm seemed to reach a peak.

All of the girls had returned from their dates or studies, had

taken their showers or whatever and settled into their evening

routine. Gwen, Carol and various members of the

"dining-hall-bunch" passed in and out of Linda's room during the

night to gossip, exchange class notes and generally socialize.

Carol came by several times and twice invited me to return with

her to her room. About 1 am, Linda and I were thoroughly bushed

and ready to call it a day.

In the morning, I felt quite refreshed and ready to attack a new

day. I removed the remainder of my masquerade and put on the

clothes that I wore when I came to find Linda yesterday. I walked

back to my dorm, a new man.