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K R I S T E N' S C O L L E C T I O N
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Prairie Girl
by ChLaFemme (chlafemme@aol.com)
***
Domination and forcing orphaned children into
transgender rolls is the basis of this story of child
abuse and exploitation. (MFdom/b, ped, tg, bd)
***
Part One
The driver from the orphanage sighed.
The ranch buildings in front of him were in a
dilapidated state and stood out like a sore thumb in the
beautiful but remote countryside in which it was
located. He had driven for almost three days to reach
the place.
It was not the ranch though that depressed him it was
the thought of meeting the rancher and his wife that
made him feel heavy hearted. He had seen them when they
had visited the orphanage three months before. He
remembered the rancher's rough manner and equally rough
temperament.
His wife had been different though, quieter, more
subdued; 'close to tears' was how one of the cooks in
the orphanage had described her. 'A high-born lady who'd
married beneath her' was the consensus in the kitchen.
The rancher approached him with a scowl on his face.
"Who are you and want do you want around here?" he
demanded in a menacing voice.
The driver explained who he was and why he was there.
"They're in the back," he concluded, indicating the back
of his wagon.
The rancher gave him a smug look.
"Ah yes, we've been expecting them," he said. "Me and my
wife have no kids of our own so we'll treat them real
good!"
"OK, you guys, we're here," the driver called, opening
the canvas cover.
Three boys clambered out and looked around them.
"Hey! What gives? There's three of 'em!" the rancher
exclaimed in surprise. "The lady in the orphanage said
we were only getting two?"
"No, I was told three. Mrs. Mellon... she's the
matron... she picked out these three," the driver said,
scratching his head. "You say you were told you were
getting two: want me to bring back one?"
"Uh? No, no, no... my memory must've slipped me... yes,
it was three..." the rancher replied hastily. "No, we'll
take 'em."
The driver took out a piece of paper from his pocket and
asked the rancher to sign the form. He handed the
rancher a sealed letter which he said was from Mrs.
Mellon to his wife.
Before the driver left he warned the rancher that if any
of the boys escaped the others would be taken from him.
He wished the boys good luck and as he clicked the
horses away on the long journey back to the orphanage he
saw the rancher giving one of them a cuff on the side of
the head. He wanted to turn around and take the kids
back with him but he knew it wasn't possible. He sighed,
he had seen this situation so many times before: young
boys from the orphanage being used virtually as unpaid
laborers by unscrupulous ranchers. But the orphanage was
under pressure to make space for new arrivals so the
older children were placed wherever they could.
++++
The rancher told the three cowering boys in front of him
he was to be known as Boss. He showed the boys to their
quarters, a large, draughty building, set a short
distance from the two-storey house where Boss and his
wife lived.
Two make-shift beds had been set against one wall. There
they met the rancher's wife, Queenie, who was putting
blankets on straw mattresses.
"They've come," Boss grunted to her.
"There's three of them -- you didn't tell me about a
third one -- I've only made beds for two!" she said
sharply.
"Well, you'll have to make another bed cos' we've got
three now!" her husband retorted.
The new arrivals felt the woman's piercing blue eyes
scrutinize them.
"Look at that small skinny one!" she hissed, pointing at
the boy in the middle. "He'll never last a day out with
the herds! You're a fool for taking him!"
Boss looked at the boy.
"Damn orphanage -- I asked for big strapping guys and I
get these two and this little weakling!" he cursed
loudly. "The driver said that woman in the orphanage...
what's her name?"
"Mrs. Mellon," his wife interjected.
"Yeah, Mrs. Mellon... picked them out. Uh, that reminds
me, the driver said this was for you," Boss said, taking
an envelope out of his pocket and passing it to her.
"She's doing this to spite me -- I never liked that
stuck-up bitch anyway!"
The other two bigger boys looked protectively at the
blonde-haired boy in between them. He hardly came to
their shoulder and compared to him they were built like
giants. They were used to manual labor from their days
in the orphanage but their friend looked like he
couldn't lift a stone.
Boss continued to rent the air with his curses. The
atmosphere in the building became ominous and
threatening. The two bigger boys feared the enraged
farmer might do their companion harm.
"I'll take him."
"You'll what?" spluttered Boss.
"I'll take him," his wife repeated, quickly putting the
letter she had been reading into her pocket. "He's
plainly not suitable for outdoor work. He wouldn't last
two days out there!"
"What would you do with him?" Boss demanded.
"I have plenty of work for him," Queenie assured him.
"With three extra mouths to feed I'll be stretched to my
limit, but with him I'll be able to get through the
work."
Boss looked at her incredulously.
"He'll work with me... end of story," he snarled.
The woman fell silent but the two bigger boys saw that
her eyes never left their blonde companion.
The next day the three boys accompanied Boss out to
where the herds were grazing; the work was hard and
unremitting. The two bigger boys coped with the workload
but their smaller companion struggled. Despite Boss's
curses and wallops the boy was not able to work any
faster.
When they returned to the ranch that evening for dinner
the boy was hardly able to eat his meal from exhaustion.
The woman had a broad smirk on her face as she served
dinner.
The same pattern was repeated the next day; this time
Boss found himself losing his temper at regular
intervals. It was clear that the boy was not up to the
physical work in the fields.
Boss hated to be proven wrong by his wife and especially
in front of the two older boys, Homer and Dutchie. But
he was losing so much time over the slightly built
youngster that he had no choice. He decided, however, to
keep the boy one last day in the field to at least prove
his wife wrong that he wouldn't last two days.
During dinner time Queenie asked the boy to show her his
hands.
"I've never seen such soft hands on a boy!" she
exclaimed in wonderment, taking his hand in hers. Seeing
that his hands had cuts and bruises she offered to put
ointment on them. But Boss roared angrily at her to mind
her own business.
Boss was to regret his decision to keep the boy one
extra day. He spent so much time supervising the smaller
boy that hardly any work was done that day. When they
arrived back at the ranch that evening he yelled
impatiently for his wife. Queenie appeared in the
kitchen doorway, a knowing smile playing on her lips.
Grabbing the boy by the collar Boss shoved him in her
direction.
"OK, you're in charge of him, do you hear! If he steps
out of line or tries to escape, you've had it!" he
roared at her.
Queenie turned pale.
"I'll see that it doesn't happen," she replied,
recovering her composure. Then, beckoning to the fair-
headed boy she said: "In here, Blondie."
Homer and Dutchie watched as their younger companion
shuffled slowly towards the kitchen.
"I'm in charge of him now, Boss: he's my responsibility
now, OK?" Queenie asserted.
Boss shrugged dismissively: "You can do what you like
with him, he's useless!"
Homer and Dutchie saw the woman give the boy a gloating,
almost possessive look as he passed by her. She followed
him into the kitchen and shut the door behind her.
++++
The days that passed gradually developed into a pattern.
Queenie was first up and when she had dressed she would
go out to the building where the boys had been locked in
for the night and wake her fair-haired assistant.
Together they would prepare breakfast for Boss and the
two bigger boys, Homer and Dutchie. Then they would fill
bags with food and drink which Boss and his helpers
would have for lunch.
They would wash the breakfast dishes when Boss and the
two boys had saddled up and departed for the day. Next
they would tidy the house and collect items for the
laundry. Washing was done in a large tub for which they
had to collect water in buckets from the well.
After lunch they would feed the farm animals before
going inside to prepare the dinner. Dinner was served at
six, sometimes it was later. They always knew when Boss
and the two boys were coming: the barks of the dogs
would herald their arrival. After dinner Boss would lock
the two bigger boys into their quarters for the night.
Queenie and Blondie would then clear away the table and
wash the dishes. When she was satisfied that the kitchen
was clean Blondie too was brought out to the out-house
and locked in with the other two boys.
Then Queenie would sit with Boss until it was time for
bed. Sometimes they would talk but mostly they sat in
silence, she sewing and he smoking his pipe or drinking.
Though they were in each other's company all day they
rarely spoke apart from Queenie giving Blondie
instructions and he acknowledging his understanding of
them.
He liked to keep his distance from her: he showed that
by chatting and joking with Homer and Dutchie at meal-
times. It irked her that when he was in their presence
he liked to behave as if she didn't exist.
Blondie was a good worker: he kept the kitchen neat and
tidy; he did his chores without complaint; he had become
a good cook (a fact appreciated by Boss and the two
boys). He seemed glad not to be out working with the
others though he never admitted it. Homer and Dutchie
liked to tease him about his soft, easy job as a 'maid'.
Queenie though she was glad he was a willing worker
found his presence increasingly uncomfortable. She
realized deep down she was afraid of him. She feared
that Blondie would try to escape: sometimes she woke up
in a sweat at night thinking of what her husband would
do to her if he did.
Her other great fear was that some day he would attack
her before escaping and by the time Boss returned home
he would be long gone. In this scenario she pictured
herself as a defenceless female at the mercy of a
vengeful man.
The responsibility of watching him all day was a much
greater mental strain then she had anticipated. She
tried to reassure herself that if he did attack her she
would be able to defend herself. She knew she was
stronger than him: she had just been able to lift a bag
of corn while he could barely budge it.
Yet there were times she was glad he was around. Before
his arrival she had a long day on her own and even when
Boss was at home in the evenings sometimes he hardly
spoke to her. Though she only gave orders to Blondie at
least she was communicating with another person. She was
uneasy though because she never knew what was going on
in his mind. She imagined he must hate her --
particularly for making him do women's work.
One day Queenie sent him out at noon to feed the hens.
When he hadn't returned after a quarter of an hour, cold
fear clutched her heart. She ran outside calling him:
there was no answer.
Trembling with fear she searched the out-buildings. To
her horror she could hear her husband's dogs in the
distance; she realized that he must be coming home
early. Panic-stricken, she intensified her search for
the missing boy. Even if she saw the boy, she said to
herself in a panic, with her long skirts she would never
be able to catch him.
She had searched all the out-buildings bar one: an old
shed where a young calf was tethered. Opening the door
cautiously she caught sight of a movement beneath the
straw. She pounced and dragged the boy out of his hiding
place.
Queenie was white with anger. The boy lay shaking with
fear on the ground while the calf tied to a ring on the
wall gazed at both of them in dumb curiosity.
What happened next was like a blur to Queenie, a searing
anger exploded deep inside her obliterating all her
natural instincts. She seized a length of rope and
struggle though he might, Queenie soon had the boy's
wrists tied behind his back. She hauled him back to the
house and then to the spare bedroom upstairs. There she
opened a large empty closet and pushed the boy in
locking the solid wooden doors behind him.
She rushed downstairs to meet her husband to explain
what had happened.
When she opened the kitchen door there was no sound from
the fields. No dog barked, no voices could be heard.
With relief she guessed the dogs must have been chasing
a coyote or something and had come close to the house.
Still trembling with shock, Queenie sat down in the
kitchen. It would be another five or six hours before
Boss would be home. She knew she had been lucky... very
lucky: the boy had probably heard the dogs too and had
come to the same conclusion that she had -- which was
why he had hidden in the out-building. He was probably
even more afraid of Boss than she was. If it hadn't been
for the dogs barking he would have run off and she
wouldn't have had a chance to catch him in her long
skirts.
The knowledge though that she was physically stronger
than the boy comforted her. She had been able to tie him
up and drag him into the house. But Blondie would run
off again, she thought to herself, of that she was sure.
Then she would have to face Boss's rage -- there would
be no lucky escape like today.
How then to keep him from escaping? Queenie knew she
couldn't keep him tied up or locked away all day. How
could she shackle him so that escape was impossible?
++++
When Boss and the two bigger boys arrived back for
dinner that evening their eyes nearly popped out of
their sockets.
"What's... what's... going on here?" Boss spluttered,
wiping the sweat from his face.
"What do you mean?" Queenie replied nonchalantly.
"I mean... him! What's he doing in those clothes!" her
husband roared, stabbing a dirty finger at the fair-
haired boy.
"That's his uniform..." she started to reply.
"Uniform! Why the hell does he need a uniform like
that?" Boss interrupted in a demanding voice.
"Because I say he needs a uniform and don't forget I'm
in charge of him!" she flashed back angrily.
Boss was momentarily taken back by Queenie's sharp
retort.
"He doesn't need a dress for a uniform!" he fumed.
"Who's in charge of him?" Queenie demanded, her hands on
her hips. "You or me?"
"You are. But..."
"And if he's going to do a maid's work then I say he's
going to dress in a maid's uniform," she interrupted.
"But..." Boss repeated.
"But what?" she challenged.
Boss, tired and weary from a day's toil and confused by
his wife's maddening logic, banged his fists on the
table.
"Where's my dinner?" he shouted.
Queenie nodded to the fair-haired boy who started to
serve the meal. Dinner was eaten in silence except for
Boss loudly slurping his soup. The two bigger boys each
got a cuff from Boss when he caught them staring at his
wife's helper.
"I've put them away for the night," Boss grunted to his
wife after dinner. She and Blondie were clearing away
the dishes.
Queenie nodded.
"I'm going to keep him in the spare room from now on,"
she told her husband, indicating the boy beside her.
"That way I can get him up earlier and make him work
longer and harder."
"How long are you going to keep him in that?" Boss
asked, pointing at the boy with distaste.
"In what?" Queenie asked, feigning innocence.
"In that dress, damn you!" Boss exploded.
"For as long as it's needed," she replied insouciantly.
"Why should it bother you? You said I can do anything I
like with him..."
Boss looked at her in astonishment; then he threw his
arms up in disgust.
"Have it your way," he replied wearily. "I think you're
crazy."
He sat down on his favorite chair and picked up a half-
finished bottle of whisky. Soon his snoring resounded
throughout the house.
"Upstairs," Queenie ordered the humiliated boy. "I'm not
finished with you yet."
++++
The next morning Queenie was up earlier than usual. She
washed and dressed while her husband slept on in the
bed.
She went down the passageway and taking a key from her
pocket she quietly unlocked the door to the spare
bedroom.
The boy was still asleep. While he was rousing she
secured a length of cord to each wrist. Then she
released the rope that tied his hands to the head of the
bed. Before he could react she dragged him out of the
bed and forced him to face the foot of the bed. Despite
his struggles she effortlessly tied the cord attached to
his left wrist to the bed-post and then the other wrist.
"What are you going to do with me?" he asked sullenly,
his face suffused with the twin humiliation of being
bound and finding himself still wearing her clothes.
"You'll see soon enough," she replied curtly.
Queenie first took off his night-gown, untying each
wrist as necessary to take off the garment.
Then she passed a cotton chemise over his head and
pulled it down over his slim frame. She released each
wrist at a time to do the sleeves and then retied it to
the bed.
Next she attached a pair of black stockings on his legs
and held them in place with garters.
The boy's face fell as he saw what was coming next. "No,
no, no, not that, please, please," he beseeched.
"Do you know how tight I'll make it? Tighter than
yesterday!" she sneered, placing the corset around his
middle. She started lacing it at back, tugging each lace
as hard as she could.
"That's tight enough," he gasped. "I can hardly
breathe!!!"
Queenie redoubled her efforts. "I want to <tug> show off
<tug> your figure!" she panted.
Next she put on five petticoats, trimmed with lace and
ruffled to give them volume, followed by a purple dress.
The dress was put on in the same laborious way as the
chemise: she would release one arm at a time so she
could put it through the sleeve before retying it to the
bed-post and doing the other arm.
She buttoned up the dress at back and taking a wide
leather belt she placed it around his waist with the
buckle at back. Then she pulled the belt through the
buckle as hard as she could so that it cinched at the
tightest notch-hole possible. The belt fitted so tautly
around his waist that she couldn't even insert her
finger in between it and the dress. More importantly, it
was so tight fitting that he wouldn't be able to pull
the buckle around to the front to open it.
"There's nothing like a dress to make you quit thinking
of running away! Just wait till you get used to the idea
of a skirt limiting the length of your step!" she
breathed triumphantly in his ear. "And I've fixed that
you won't be able to get out of that dress without my
help!"
Next came a white, full-length apron and then his feet
were squeezed into a pair of lace-up ankle boots.
Finally, she worked his blonde hair with a brush and
then pinned on a snood, a loose bag-like ornamental net
which held his hair at back.
"Why are you making me wear these clothes?" he cried
piteously as she untied his wrists. "Why are you doing
this to me? What are you going to do with me?"
Queenie gave him a hard, spiteful look. "What am I going
to do with you? I'm going to see that you never, ever
escape from me again!" she hissed venomously.
Before she led her hapless assistant down to the kitchen
she dusted his face with scented powder.
Part Two
Boss was astonished at breakfast to find the boy still
dressed in his wife's clothes. The meal, like the
previous evening's dinner, was eaten in tense silence.
All eyes in the room were on Blondie. Boss and the two
boys, Homer and Dutchie, embarrassed and confused by the
boy's feminine attire, threw clandestine glances in his
direction;
Queenie, hovering in the background, watched his every
movement like a cat with a captive mouse.
'I can tell from your face that you don't like any of
this. Why did you let her make you wear her clothes
yesterday?'
Boss said to himself as the shame-faced boy served
coffee. 'What happened between the two of you yesterday?
Why are you so silent today? Why don't you say
something?'
Boss observed how subservient the boy had become:
Queenie scarcely had to raise her voice and Blondie
would scurry to carry out her orders.
The dinner that evening was eaten in an equally strained
atmosphere. Gone was the boy's usual good-natured banter
with Homer and Dutchie, instead his downcast eyes sought
to avoid meeting theirs.
The following day passed and went, as did the next and
the next. Boss was no nearer understanding the reason
for Blondie's womanish attire then he was at the start.
The silence which had characterized meal-times was
slowly punctured; first by he and the two bigger boys
speaking in whispers and then gradually talking in their
normal voices.
Queenie excluded Blondie from their conversations by
confining him to the kitchen; he only came out when she
told him to. Boss was astonished how -- without a murmur
of protest -- the boy would let her fuss over his lace
bonnet or re-tie his apron. The control that she seemed
to exert over Blondie through dressing him in female
clothing unsettled Boss and, if the truth be told, it
unsettled him greatly.
He thought it was unnatural and unwholesome of Queenie
to make the boy dress in her clothes. But whenever he
raised the matter with his wife she always had a ready
answer for him. She would clinch her argument by
pointing out that Blondie wasn't complaining...
He fretted too that Queenie was spending too much time
with the boy in the evening -- she no longer sat with
him after dinner ("I'm too busy right now... perhaps
tomorrow," she would say). As he sat alone in his
favorite chair he could hear the two of them in the
spare bedroom upstairs. Occasionally, he would hear his
wife's raised voice and the sudden scuffling of heels on
the floor.
Boss came to regret putting Queenie in charge of
Blondie: it had been a mistake on his part. He knew too
that Dutchie and Homer secretly blamed him for what was
happening to their friend. In his mind he saw the boy
running away to escape the humiliation he suffered at
the hands of Queenie. He thought he would use this
excuse to wrestle control of the boy from his wife and
he sought her out one evening after dinner.
He found the two of them in the spare bedroom. Blondie
was sitting in front of a mirror with a large sheet
wrapped around him; his wife was trimming the boy's long
blond hair.
"What are you doing, woman?" he growled.
"Can't you see? I'm cutting his hair," she replied
testily. She seemed to resent his presence in the room.
"What do you want?"
"I think he's going to escape -- I've seen that look in
his eyes; he's going to try to escape, mark my words!"
he exclaimed, wide-eyed.
"Not while I'm in charge of him!" Queenie snapped back.
"No! He's going to try and escape! I know it!" her
husband persisted.
"He's not going to escape, I tell you!" Queenie rasped.
"How can you be so sure?" Boss demanded.
Queenie gave her husband an exasperated glare and
whipped the sheet off the boy.
"There!" she said triumphantly. "Do you think he'll
escape now?"
Her husband looked sheepish seeing that the boy's hands
had been tied to the back of the chair.
"You can't keep him hog-tied like that all day!" her
husband challenged furiously.
"I don't need to!" Queenie retorted. "I can control him
well enough in other ways."
"How?" her husband demanded. "What's to stop him running
away when he's out of your sight?"
Queenie went around to the front of the boy. Lifting up
the hem of his dress and all but the inner-most
petticoats she pointed to the remaining lace-trimmed
underskirt.
"See that?" she said, blazing with anger.
"Yeah, what about it?" Boss replied impatiently. "You're
going to tell me that a frilly underskirt is going to
stop him running away?"
Queenie smirked.
"That's exactly what I'm going to tell you," she
retorted. "That's a hobble skirt he's wearing -- do you
know what that means?"
Boss shook his head.
"It means that it restricts his leg movement so he can't
move more than six inches at a time!" she told him.
Her husband sneered. "Oh yeah! What's to stop him taking
it off?" he demanded.
"His dress."
"His dress?" her husband repeated incredulously.
"Yes, his dress; he can't take his petticoats off
without taking off his dress and I fixed it that he
can't take off his dress without me!" Queenie replied as
if she was explaining something very simple to a not-
very-bright small child. Boss glared at her.
"You think women aren't as clever as men, but we know
how to impose discipline in our own way," Queenie
snapped. Then, going on the offensive, she added: "Where
are your two? Do I see that the door of their quarters
is open?"
Her husband went over to the window in disbelief and
then with a roar rushed out of the room and down the
stairs.
Queenie bolted the door closed behind him and draped the
boy with the sheet again.
Taking up her scissors again she looked at his
reflection in the mirror.
"Men!" she snorted derisively. "Take my advice: don't
have anything to do with them!"
++++
Homer and Dutchie missed their friend; they only saw him
at breakfast and dinner during the week and at lunch on
Sundays. He was not allowed to talk to them on Queenie's
express orders. She got Boss to punish them if she
caught either of them talking to him.
They felt sorry for Blondie seeing the way Queenie
treated him. They both agreed that despite Boss's
physical maltreatment of them they preferred working
with him than her.
"She never lets him out of her sight," Homer said one
evening after Boss had locked them in for the evening.
"Yeah, she's a right devil!" agreed Dutchie who was the
smarter of the two.
"She gives me the creeps! Those eyes -- like they can
read your mind!" Homer exclaimed. "I don't know how
Blondie sticks it."
"I don't think he has a choice. I heard Boss roaring to
her the other night not to keep him tied up all day..."
Dutchie said.
"You're joking! She keeps him tied up all day?" Homer
breathed in horror.
"That's what Boss was shouting, anyway," Dutchie
responded.
"But he can hardly move as it is, with all those
skirts!" Homer commented. "I was watchin' him on Sunday
and he could only shuffle along!"
"I know, I know," Dutchie agreed wearily. "She knows
that he can't get very far in those clothes -- I bet
that's why she makes him wear them!"
"I wish there was something we could do for him," Homer
exclaimed. "Boss won't do anything for Blondie -- he's
washed his hands on him!"
Dutchie nodded. "I'd give my bottom dollar to help him
escape," he said.
"But he can't escape, Dutchie!" Homer pointed out. "She
has eyes like a hawk -- she misses nothing!"
He clambered up to the loft above them. He gave Dutchie
a low whistle and waved him to come up.
Through the only window in their quarters they watched
as a light came on in the spare bedroom over in the farm
building. They saw Queenie drag the femininely-dressed
boy into the room.
"Look, Dutchie!" Homer exclaimed in horror. "His hands
_are_ tied behind his back!"
"Poor fellah!" breathed Dutchie.
Then Queenie closed the curtains but the boys continued
to watch. They could faintly hear their friend crying
and pleading; then there was silence.
The light went out fifteen minutes later.
++++
It was just after noon and though it was still only
early spring it was very hot.
They were sitting on a bench beneath a sycamore tree
whose leafy branches shaded them from the burning rays
of the sun.
Queenie felt relaxed and comfortable despite the heat.
Her fingers deftly worked the needle in and out of her
embroidery frame. She glanced briefly at her companion
and decided to let him suffer for another while.
"My, it's hot out here!" she said a few minutes later.
She gave him a smile (she smiled a lot these days) and
squeezed his arm.
"Blondie, you've a lot to learn," she said. "But I'm
disappointed that you're not very willing pupil today.
But time is on my side, Blondie, and I can wait -- all
day if I have to. I told you yesterday I was going to
teach you embroidery and teach you embroidery I will!"
She shifted closer to him on the bench.
"Would you like an extra layer, Blondie?" she whispered.
There was no response from the boy.
"That's what I'll do, Blondie -- I'll add another layer!
You've been disobedient for not wanting to do your
embroidery lessons!" Queenie said playfully. She waited
to see his reaction: he was already wearing four extra
layers of petticoats! Each demeanour was punished by
another layer being added to the standard five he wore;
Blondie knew the rules: obey her -- or face the
consequences!
Tears trickled down the boy's face.
"Oh, Blondie! Don't cry!" Queenie consoled him in an
insincere voice. "Maybe embroidery lessons wouldn't be
so bad after all?"
The boy nodded.
Queenie reached over and untied the cord binding his
wrists together. The boy tenderly rubbed his wrists; the
red weals made by the cord were clearly visible on his
skin.
"I'll leave the sash the way it is, Blondie," she told
him. The boy nodded tearfully: Queenie had undone the
sash of his dress when he had sat down on the bench.
Then she had slipped the two ends of the sash between
the wooden bars of the bench before retying them again.
In this way he was secured to the bench. The boy knew
from bitter experience how Queenie loved to tether him
in this way; he knew too it was impossible to reach
around to free himself, leaving him at her mercy.
Acting on impulse and even though she knew it was an
over-kill, she had even tied his ankles together. She
remembered looking up and seeing the hot tears of
humiliation welling in his eyes as she had reached under
his skirts. Best of all, she remembered expecting
resistance but it never came: he had meekly submitted to
her binding his slim ankles together with a length of
silk ribbon.
"The gag can stay on too," she added with an imperious
smile.
When Queenie had dressed Blondie in one of her night-
gowns one evening and tied his wrists to the bed, she
laid out his clothes for the following day.
"You're going to look very pretty in this dress,
girlie," she smiled, showing him the dark green garment.
She hung it in his closet and verbally checked off his
uniform: "Chemise, stockings, corset, petticoats, apron,
lace bonnet! All your pretties ready for you tomorrow!"
She did a final check on the cords securing his wrists
to the bed-post. Satisfied, she splashed his neck and
wrists with eau-de-cologne.
"Sweet dreams, girlie!" she whispered softly before
blowing out the lamp. She locked the door behind her.
Downstairs she took out the letter she had started
writing to her cousin, a herbalist living near a city on
the east coast.
She read what she had written so far:
"Dearest Anita:
I hope this letter finds you in good health.
All is well here and if the weather continues to hold it
looks that we will have a good year on the ranch.
I am most grateful for your letter and package which
finally arrived last month. I have been administering
the contents of the green bottle to Blondie. Of course,
he does not know that I am giving it to him. But you
were right! He complains of extra tiredness and of weary
limbs. He is like a lamb now -- so docile! It is a great
mental relief to me to know that I can give him this to
sap his boyish energy!
Anita, it is so amusing! When he complains of tiredness,
I tell him he is a weakling -- that he is just like a
girl! Then, he gets offended and tries to stand up! But
he soon runs out of strength and has to sit down again!
I don't say anything but I let him know by my expression
that I have been proven right! Of course, I have been
adding extra petticoats underneath his dress and the
weight of these adds to his difficulties! Just lifting
his skirts takes its toll!
If only, Anita, I had the excuse to dress him in female
clothes from the start! I remember when he first worked
under my supervision, I was so apprehensive about him
escaping. Now that his movements are dictated by the
constraints of voluminous underskirts, hoops, and long
skirts with which you and I are so familiar, I feel so
relaxed knowing that he can't abscond.
My 'girlie' (how he hates the term!) has always coped
well with his domestic chores but now he has to re-learn
how to do them wearing a dress! He's found that simple
things like picking something up from the floor have to
be done differently: for a start your corset doesn't
allow any flexibility at the waist and, secondly, young
ladies are 'trained' not to show their petticoats!
I have begun instructing girlie in the finer points of
femininity: I have started him on embroidery and though
he doesn't know it yet I will soon teach him to braid
his hair.
Of course, Boss is jealous of the attention I give to
Blondie. But, Anita, I don't care! I dedicated my life
to Boss up to now and never got any thanks or
recognition in return. Now, I've got Blondie and,
believe me, I don't intend to let him go! Boss has his
two boys, Homer and Dutchie, so in a way he's happy too.
Anyway, I've got a plan to get Boss to quit cribbing
about how I treat Blondie. If it works -- and I am sure
it will -- I can get on with molding Blondie in the way
I told you about in my last letter.
It is richly ironic but I am as strict on girlie as my
mother was on me! How I hated her authoritarian ways and
how I detested her attempt to turn me into -- what I
thought then -- was the personification of a porcelain
doll: delicate, beautiful to look at but voiceless! But
now I look back and realize the value of what she was
trying to do; she knew then, as I do now, that until
women receive emancipation we will never be treated as
equals by men. While we wait for our rights our only
hope is to sit pretty and attract a husband who
hopefully will come to recognize our qualities. I ran
away with Boss before my mother could teach me about men
-- a mistake I do not intend to make with girlie."
Then Queenie finished the letter with a few more
sentences describing how female clothing was shaping
Blondie's behavior. She related with relish how Blondie
had learnt to lift his skirts off the ground when he
went anywhere and how he smoothed the back of his dress
when sitting down. She recounted how one day at dinner
Boss and the boys had noticed a bruise on Blondie's
forehead; even they had laughed when she explained that
he had tripped on his skirts and fallen against a chair!
She sealed the letter in an envelope; she would tell
Boss to post it the next time he was in Stuger City.
++++
Boss was surrounded by his drinking cronies in the
Thunder Mountain Salon when the owner, a widow by the
name of Hettie Baldwin, approached holding a bottle of
whisky.
She was a small, compact woman in her early forties and
though more comfortable in female company had an easy
way with her mostly male customers.
Though Boss was an infrequent visitor to her salon in
Stuger City, Hettie had recently learnt a great detail
of information about him. Information which lowered her
already low opinion of him.
Boss, she learnt, had been married for over ten years
and as his wife was infertile had no children of his
own. When his wife had suggested adopting a girl and a
boy from an orphanage, he had refused to entertain the
idea. A few days later, he suddenly reversed his stance.
But his wife's joy was short-lived; instead he bullied
her into accepting his proposal of firstly taking boys
only and, secondly, taking older boys who could help him
on the ranch. His wife had cried on the journey to the
orphanage and back but he had remained unmoved by her
tears. The matron of the orphanage had tried to
facilitate her original wishes but could not do so
without her husband's consent.
Hettie learnt that the orphanage had provided Boss with
three boys, one of whom was physically unsuitable for
manual work and whom his wife had fashioned into a
domestic help. When this boy had tried to escape she had
punished him by dressing him in female clothing. This
unorthodox form of punishment, she had found, was very
effective in preventing him from escaping again. Though
she recognised that being dressed as a girl was
initially very humiliating for the boy, in time she
believed -- from what she had seen and learnt about him
-- she could convince him that he was fated for
femininity.
The only fly in the ointment was that Boss was
continually threatening to take the boy from her
control.
As Hettie approached the table where Boss and his
friends were sitting, she could hear them talking about
recent hangings in the town.
"Evening, boys," she greeted them.
"Hello, Hettie," they chorused.
"Couldn't but overhear you talking about hangings," she
said, pouring them a refill of whisky ["The drink's on
me," she told them]. Looking directly at Boss she said:
"Ever hear of what happened to Wally Segard?"
"Wally Segard? No, who's he? What about him?" Boss
replied.
"You never heard about poor old Wally!" Hettie exclaimed
in surprise.
Boss shook his head.
"He was murdered six months ago," Hettie continued.
"Murdered? By who?" Boss quizzed.
"His wife..." Hettie replied.
"His wife!" Boss interjected.
"Yes, it seems she wanted children but couldn't have any
of her own. Seems too she wanted to adopt a girl from an
orphanage but Wally wouldn't let her," Hettie said.
"He wouldn't let her?" Boss repeated, suddenly going
red.
"That's right. So, she got a knife and cut off his
manhood while he was in a drunken sleep," Hettie said
calmly.
"Oh man!" Boss moaned and involuntarily crossed his
legs.
"Yes, it was terrible!" Hettie said. "So they arrested
her -- Wally died a few days later -- and questioned her
why she'd did it. She said she'd wanted a daughter so
bad that she'd kill anyone who got in her way. And it
seems Wally got in her way..."
"She did that because... that's unbelievable..." Boss
stuttered.
"No, it happened, Boss," Hettie confirmed. "Every
married woman longs for a daughter... it's a woman
thing... we've this intense craving for another female
with whom we can share our inner-most thoughts and
secrets. Seems Wally couldn't understand that desire in
his wife -- not that most husbands do..."
"That's hogwash!" Boss interrupted. "Women are just
plain irrational!"
"Maybe so, Boss," Hettie said softly, "but, Boss, just
remember this: when someone tries to get in the way of
that mother-daughter relationship, the female is the
most dangerous of the species!"
She walked away before Boss could reply.
Part Three
Queenie knew her next task was to put as much distance
between Blondie and the other two boys as she could.
Keeping him tied up and locked in the spare bedroom at
night while they slept in the out-house heightened his
sense of isolation from things masculine.
She forbade him to talk to the boys at meal times
threatening dire consequences if he did.
One morning Boss did not come down for breakfast and it
was Queenie who let Homer and Dutchie out of their
sleeping quarters.
Blondie served them their breakfast while Queenie busied
herself in the kitchen.
Dutchie touched Blondie on the arm and pointed
questioningly to Boss's empty place. Blondie, nervously
looked back to the kitchen and seeing that Queenie had
her back to them, signalled to them that Boss had been
drinking.
'Last night or this morning?' Dutchie tried to signal
back.
Blondie stared at him blankly.
Dutchie repeated the signal.
But still Blondie did not understand what he was saying.
Exasperated, Dutchie whispered, "Was he drinking last
night or this morning?"
Blondie looked around again and saw that Queenie still
had her back to them. "Last night," he whispered. "He
nearly drank a whole bot..."
"YOU WENCH! I CAUGHT YOU, YOU WENCH," Queenie shouted.
"I CAUGHT YOU TALKING!"
She strode into the room, grabbed Blondie by the arm and
dragged him, skirts flying, back into the kitchen. She
slammed the door shut behind her and slapped repeatedly
him across the face.
"I told you <slap> you're not <slap> allowed to talk
<slap> except when I tell you," she hollered.
The boy tried to ward off the blows but this incensed
Queenie even further.
"I know how to sort you out!" she snarled through
clenched teeth. She took a length of cotton and gagged
the boy as tightly as she could.
She pushed the muzzled boy back into where the two boys
were sitting and told him to finish serving the meal.
"What's... what's... going on here?" Boss said groggily
he as came into the room.
"Blondie here was disobedient and I had to punish the
wench," Queenie said calmly.
The muzzled boy looked at Boss with beseeching eyes.
Boss made his way unsteadily to his place, clutching on
to the table to balance himself and sat down. He rubbed
his blood-shot eyes with the back of his hand; he
avoided looking at Blondie.
"What's going on here?" he repeated in a hollow voice.
Queenie leant against the kitchen door with her arms
folded; a scornful look appeared on her face.
"I forbade Blondie to talk to the boys at the table and
the wench disobeyed me. Now Blondie's paying the
penalty," she said smoothly.
"But..." Boss started to reply.
"I'm in charge of Blondie, remember, and I'll decide
what the wench can or cannot do!" she snapped.
"But..." Boss tried again.
"But nothing! I won't have you undermining my authority
with the wench. Hear me, Boss? JUST DON'T GET IN MY WAY
AGAIN -- OR ELSE!" Queenie snarled through clenched
teeth, picking up a carving knife and ramming it into
the wooden carving block.
Boss, suddenly remembering the story of Wally Segard,
blanched and his hands moved to cover his crotch.
"But he needsstht to talhk!" he stuttered incoherently.
Homer and Dutchie looked on with bewilderment: was Boss
going to let her talk back to him in front of them like
this? Surely he was not going to allow her to punish
Blondie like this? 'Come on, man,' they silently urged,
'get up and show her whose boss around here!'
The boy too continued to silently implore Boss with his
eyes.
It was Queenie who broke the eerie silence.
"Blondie, come here to me! NOW!" she ordered.
The boy gave a last, despairing glance at Boss who
averted his eyes. He lifted his skirts and slowly walked
over to where Queenie was standing.
"Turn around: your gag is loose," she commanded in an
imperious voice.
The boy slowly turned around to face the men at the
table while Queenie made a great show of taking off his
gag and retying it with as much force as she could
muster.
She spun him around to face her. "There, that'll still
you. You listen to me, Blondie: you answer to me and to
me alone. Is that clear?"
The boy nodded his head.
In a louder voice Queenie continued: "Let everybody be a
witness to this: in this house you have the status of a
maid and since I'm the mistress of this household I --
and I alone -- will punish you as I see fit," she
pronounced. "Now, get Boss his breakfast."
From that day on Homer and Dutchie knew that Blondie's
fate was sealed; it was clear that Boss would never even
try to intervene on Blondie's behalf again in the
future. It was their first sign that Boss's absolute
authority was on the wane.
++++
Queenie made her hapless assistant change clothes twice
a day. He started the day wearing stiffened petticoats
and a dress. Then when Boss and the boys had gone out to
the herd she put him into hoops. She liked the idea of
the widest possible crinoline on Blondie -- the wider
the spread of his dress the more difficult it was for
him to maneouvre (and to escape).
When he thought he was out of her eye sight he would try
to undo the buttons of his dress to take the hoops off.
She would smile to herself when realizing the futility
of what he was doing Blondie would give up in despair.
Queenie deliberately created a claustrophobic atmosphere
of enforced feminine helplessness into which she sucked
Blondie and from which there was no escape:
* she never let him out of her sight;
* she kept him permanently dressed in constrictive
feminine clothing;
* she kept him tethered to his bed at night;
* she isolated him from the three other males in the
household; and,
* by her actions and commands, constantly reminded him
of his feminized state.
An important key to emphasizing his newly imposed
femininity she discovered was his hair. Queenie kept his
blonde hair long and only trimmed it to keep the locks
even. At night she would braid his hair before pinning
on a lace sleeping cap. In the morning she would fix his
hair into plaits or some other equally feminine
arrangement. During the day he was not allowed to wear
his hair bare -- it had to be covered by a cap, snood,
veil, or bonnet. At random intervals -- during the day
or night -- she would strap him to a chair and would
spend ten, fifteen or twenty minutes combing and
brushing his hair.
Queenie let a fringe grow at the front and was pleased
when every five minutes Blondie would have to sweep the
hair out of his eyes and tuck it behind his ear. Though
he was not yet conscious of it Queenie quite liked this
feminine mannerism she had developed in Blondie.
++++
There was no let up in the stifling, suffocating
feminine 'prison' regime for Blondie. On Sunday
afternoon when Boss was asleep inside the house and the
boys were messing down by the river, upstairs in her
bedroom Queenie was dressing Blondie for their Sunday
stroll.
She fastened her widest crinoline around the boy's waist
and followed it with a succession of petticoats. Then
after a few minutes deliberation she fitted him in one
of her heaviest and most elaborate dresses.
"Purple is such a lovely color on you, Blondie," she
told him, tying the sash at back. Then, she turned him
to face the mirror and added with a leer: "You look so
pretty -- and I haven't finished with you yet!"
She grinned as the boy's face burned red with
embarrassment and humiliation.
She lightly brushed the ringlets she had set in his hair
that morning and dabbed eau-de-cologne on his neck.
Queenie muzzled the boy securing the gag with a tight
knot at the back of his head.
Then she took a wide brimmed bonnet from the bed and
carefully placed it on his head. Releasing a pin she
allowed a heavy, cream-colored lace veil draped on the
brim of the hat to fall down and to touch his shoulders.
The veil was one of her favorite touches: it allowed the
boy to see where he was going but nobody looking at him
could see through it that he was gagged.
When she was satisfied that he was ready she got dressed
herself. Right from the very beginning she had decided
to dress in front of him. Though initially she found it
disconcerting to have a male watch her dress she
persevered. She reasoned that it would further undermine
his sense of male identity because he'd realize that no
woman would ever willingly permit a male (unless he was
her husband) see her undress in the privacy of her own
bedroom. Her policy of letting him see her in her
underwear would sent him the very clear but subtle
message that she did not consider him a male.
When she was finished dressing Queenie untied the cords
securing Blondie's wrists to the bed-post. She forced
his hands into a pair of white gloves and with a length
of white ribbon tied his wrists together in front. She
unlocked the bedroom door and propelled the feminized
boy down to the kitchen.
"Hold this in your left hand, girlie," she ordered,
giving him a lace parasol.
Knowing what was coming, the boy cautiously reached out
for the parasol. Taking another length of white ribbon
Queenie strapped the parasol to his hand so he could not
let go of it even if he wanted to.
"Hold your skirts up with your free hand," Queenie said,
stressing the word 'free' with sarcastic irony. The boy
gathered his voluminous skirts with difficulty with his
right hand while still keeping his parasol upright in
his other hand. Queen watched with detached amusement.
"I think you'll be too preoccupied to run away from me
this afternoon, girlie!" she joked. "Better still, if
Homer and Dutchie see you, they'll think how daintily
you're holding your pretty parasol!"
Linking arms with her hapless companion she led Blondie
along her favorite walk, to the small hill overlooking
the ranch and the river. Years ago she had gotten Boss
to make her a wooden seat under the shade of a tree, and
this was usually where she brought Blondie. Boss had
labeled it Lady's View and the name had stuck.
"Here we are!" she announced.
The boy looked at her hesitantly.
"Relax, Blondie! You can sit down on the bench today!"
Queenie laughed (she liked to keep him guessing what she
intended to do with him: sometimes she would keep him
standing in the blazing sun until he would scream
through his gag from pain and exhaustion, at other times
she would sit him on a rug but bind his ankles and
wrists together).
She settled the boy on the bench, spreading his skirts
about him. She released the parasol, untied his wrists
and removed his gloves. Next, she carefully lifted the
veil up off his face and pinned it back up on the brim
of the bonnet. Then, much to his relief, she took off
his gag. Finally, she gave him his embroidery frame,
needle and threads.
"What color are you going to make the dress?" she asked
chattily.
The boy glanced at her and then looked at the outline of
a woman printed on the fabric stretched taut over the
frame in his hands. He looked back up at her with a
defiant look in his eyes.
Queenie picked up a cord and waved it warningly in his
face.
"Purple!" the boy replied hastily.
Queenie laughed. "Off you go, girlie!" she said, sitting
down beside him.
For the next hour she watched as he embroidered, his
slim fingers working the needle and colored threads
through the fabric as she had taught him. She stopped
him occasionally to correct a mistake or to teach him a
new technique. He had come to like embroidery -- Queenie
had rightly figured that he'd find it preferable to
spending the afternoon bound and gagged.
"Are you hungry, girlie? Would you like an apple?" she
inquired later.
The boy looked at her in surprise and nodded his head.
Before he could put down his embroidery frame, Queenie
abruptly dropped the apple in his lap which he trapped
in his skirts and hungrily ate.
A few minutes later, Queenie was about to pick up her
own frame when she heard shouts. Then she saw Homer and
Dutchie brawling playfully in the river below. Even from
where she was sitting it was plain that they were naked.
Blondie looked up from his embroidery.
Queenie rummaged through her basket and pulled out a
cotton scarf.
"You're not going to gag me, are you? Why?" the boy
gasped in dismay, the blood draining from his face.
"No, girlie, I'm not going to gag you," Queenie replied,
getting up and standing in front of him. "I'm going to
blindfold you."
"Why? Why are you blindfolding me? What have I done?
Please, tell me why?" the boy pleaded.
"Because impressionable young girls should not be
exposed to the sight of male nudity until they're
married!" she replied sternly, tying the blindfold
tightly at the back of his head. Once more she released
the heavy lace veil, allowing it to fall down over the
brim of the bonnet and obscure his face.
She sat down and waited for his response. 'I know what
you'd like to say,' she said to herself, 'you'd like to
say: "But I'm not a girl -- I'm a boy just like they
are!" But you know that's not the answer I want to
hear!'
There was a silence before the boy replied.
"I won't be able to embroider now," he said in a small,
subdued voice.
Queenie smiled broadly. "That's men for you, girlie!
They always spoil things on us," she said.
Blondie said nothing.
"You can finish this later, girlie," she said, taking
the embroidery frame from him, "because, right now, I
want your undivided attention. It's high time we talk
again, woman-to-woman, on what it means to be female."
She moved closer to the boy until their skirts pressed
against each other and she could feel the outline of his
crinoline. She knew Blondie hated these "womanly chats"
which always lauded his feminine characteristics and
denigrated his masculine traits.
"What would you say, girlie, is the main difference
between men and us?" she asked.
Her blind-folded and cross-dressed companion shrugged
his shoulders in reply.
"Our femininity. We're endowed with the qualities of
gentleness, softness, sensitivity and kindness. The
qualities that tell us apart from men," she replied.
"And the qualities other women recognize in us."
Then pulling a letter from her pocket, she said: "Let me
read what someone who knows you well has said about you:
'when I first met him he was the most gentle child I
have ever encountered... so small and perfectly
formed... and with such soft skin [the envy of every
woman who comes in contact with him]... he preferred
female company... hated the rough behavior of boys'. You
know who wrote this letter, girlie?"
The boy shook his head.
"Mrs. Mellon," Queenie replied.
The boy gasped in astonishment.
"Yes, girlie, you're surprized! I never told you this
before but Mrs. Mellon picked you! Mrs. Mellon, the
matron of your orphanage! She originally offered us two
boys but, after a private conversation with me, she
later decided to add you as a bonus! That was why Boss
and I were so surprized when the driver from the
orphanage brought the three of you -- we had only
expected two!" Queenie said.
Blondie continued to gape at her.
Queenie continued: "Let me explain, girlie: I had wanted
to adopt a boy and a girl from the orphanage but Boss
wouldn't let me -- he wanted boys only. I was in tears
when we visited the orphanage and Mrs. Mellon took me
aside to find out why. When I explained this to her she
said she couldn't let me adopt a girl without Boss's
permission. She said she sympathized with me and assured
me she would do her very best to help me achieve my
goal! She had a knowing smile on her face when she said
it!"
She took Blondie's hands in her own.
"And do you know why, girlie?" she asked softly.
The boy shook his head for a second time.
"Because she immediately thought of you, girlie. She
wrote in her letter that because of your feminine
characteristics... of gentleness, softness,
sensitivity... you could be the nearest substitute to
the girl I had been hoping for!" Queenie replied. "She
added that all you lacked was a dress but this has not
always been the case in the past! I always thought this
was a strange remark but I never made anything of it.
But lately, girlie, I've observed some things in you
that has made me think of her remark. Of course, most of
the time you pretend to hate your present predicament
but deep down I'm not so sure..."
"I do hate it!" the boy interrupted.
"Then explain this: a few minutes ago, I dropped an
apple in your lap while you were holding your embroidery
frame in your hands. Remember how you caught it? By
spreading your knees wide and catching it with your
skirt: that's the way a girl catches something dropped
in her lap. A boy does the opposite: he catches by
bringing his legs together," Queenie said.
"So?" the boy muttered scornfully.
"So where did you learn to catch that way?" Queenie
asked.
"You were tutored at a very early age, I imagine..."
"Hogwash!" Blondie replied, reddening. "What does it
prove?" he added in a husky voice.
"Prior tutoring, girlie, prior tutoring!" Queenie
asserted.
"And, I suspect, tutoring which began at a very early
age..."
The boy looked down at the ground and didn't reply.
"There are other little clues, girlie," Queenie
continued softly. "You thread your embroidery needle the
way a woman does! A few days ago as an experiment, I
asked Dutchie and Homer to thread a needle. They both
did it the opposite why you and I do it...!"
Blondie said nothing and continued to look at the
ground.
"Is there anything you'd like to tell me, girlie?"
Queenie prompted gently. "How is it that you do all of
these things the way a girl does?"
The boy did not reply.
"Don't want to talk, girlie?" Queenie responded briskly.
"Don't you worry, girlie, I'll make a few enquiries..."
Part Four
Most of the time Homer and Dutchie ignored Blondie; it
simply didn't make any sense to risk a beating by
conversing with their former friend. They acted as if
Blondie didn't exist.
Queenie found it amusing to watch Blondie as he sought
to covertly attract their attention at meal-times. He
would dawdle at their table when he thought she wasn't
looking or give them unsolicited extra helpings. But his
efforts were wasted on Homer and Dutchie: they had
decided he wasn't worth the trouble of antagonizing Boss
and they carried on as if he didn't exist.
Their aloof attitude gave Queenie the opportunity to
impress on Blondie the reality of his new situation. She
told him he as a "woman" he would have to live with the
fact that men would treat him as a second-class citizen.
However, if Blondie was willing she would show him how
to gain and keep their attention. She could see he was
interested in finding out how but his pride wouldn't
allow it.
One morning she rose earlier than usual and instead of
fixing his hair into two pony-tails she set about
arranging his long blond tresses into a french braid.
She interleaved a silk ribbon between the braids of
hair, creating a stunning effect. From the corner of her
eye she watched the boy's reaction. She could see that
Blondie was interested but he was trying hard not to
show it. When she was nearly finished she held up a
small mirror at the back of his head so he could see in
the mirror in front of him the intricate braiding of
hair and ribbon. It was the kind of hair arrangement
that would catch any man's attention -- and he knew it.
Then, to his complete astonishment, she undid
everything. Soon his hair was back to the point from
which she had started. She handed him a brush.
"You do your hair the way I've just done it -- and be
quick!" she said curtly.
The boy tentatively dragged the brush through his hair
and grabbing locks of hair tried to tie them into a
braid. The result was a complete and utter mess;
however, Queenie refused to remedy the situation and
made the boy serve breakfast as he was.
He had to suffer the humiliation of the guffaws of
laughter from Boss and Homer seeing the dishevelled
state of his hair. Only Dutchie seemed to show sympathy
for his plight by not joining in their laughter; he just
looked quizzically at Blondie's normally neatly coifed
hair.
"Being sleeping in the hay, girlie?" Boss snorted with
laughter, winking lewdly at Homer.
When Boss and his helpers had saddled up and departed
for the day, a stern-faced Queenie dragged her hapless
assistant up his bedroom.
"You disgraced me and every woman with your appearance!"
she stormed. She pushed the cowering boy into a chair
and then secured him to it by running a cord around his
waist.
"Just look at your hair! You just don't get it, do you
girlie?" she spat. "Men judge you and me not by our
brains but by our appearance! How are you going to earn
their respect if you can't even arrange your hair? They
were laughing at you, girlie! Boss even said you look
like a whore!"
She picked up a brush.
"Do you want to look like a whore, girlie?" she demanded
ominously in a low voice. "Do you want men to laugh at
you? To mock your appearance? To call you a frump or
Plain Jane behind your back?"
The boy shook his head.
"Of course not -- you're not a dumb blonde! You want to
learn to look after your hair, to be able to braid it
and plait it, to curl it, and to arrange it so it looks
pretty! Don't you, girlie?" Queenie demanded. "Do you
want to take pride in your appearance? Do you want to
command their respect?"
After a moment's hesitation, Blondie nodded his head.
"Say it, girlie!" Queenie shouted. "Say it like you
really mean it!"
"I want to do all these things; I want to make my hair
pretty!" the boy sobbed.
Queenie beamed. "Good girl, we'll start with a simple
pony-tail. I'll do it first and then you'll do it
second. I'll make you practice every day until you can
do it backwards, sidewards, upside down, inside out and
with your eyes closed!" she declared.
++++
Queenie never missed an opportunity to emphasize to
Blondie that in the men's eyes he'd crossed an invisible
line beyond which he would be considered weak, helpless
and feminine. This she planned to bring home to him in
the most daring scheme she had yet devised.
Even Blondie was surprized one night with the length of
the night-gown that she dressed him in -- it trailed on
the floor behind him as Queenie led him over to the
mirror to fix his hair for the night. But unlike
previous nights too Queenie did not braid his hair into
two strands which she would wind clock-wise around his
crown. Instead she curled his hair using small strips of
white cloth which she tied around each lock of hair.
When she was finished she smiled at his reflection in
the mirror.
"When I was your age I hated boys seeing me look like
this ––so I can understand how you feel, girlie!" she
commented sympathetically. "You know, it used to make me
feel so different from them; while they were out
enjoying themselves or doing something important I had
to sit patiently for hours while my mother curled my
hair! But then, as I've told you many times before, men
just don't realize the trouble we take to look after our
appearance!"
Blondie said nothing; soon he was tucked in bed with his
wrists tied to the bed-post. Queenie blew out the candle
and softly locked the door behind her.
"Wake up, girlie!" Queenie shouted, shaking the boy's
sleeping frame.
"Whattssss the maaaaaattttter!?!" Blondie replied
groggily.
"There's a fire outside! Hurry! Get up!" Queenie cried,
untying his wrists. "The old shed is on fire!"
Queenie dragged him out of the bed and quickly shod his
feet in a pair of high heeled ankle boots.
The boy shivered in the cold night air.
"Come on, girlie, let's go!" Queenie urged.
"I'm freezing in this! Can't I wear something else... ?"
the boy beseeched her.
"We don't have time, girlie!" Queenie snapped
impatiently.
Then she stopped, opened a closet and handed him a
shawl. "Here, put this around you -- this will keep you
warm."
When they got outside they saw that Boss and the two
boys were already fighting the fire. Flames were leaping
from the shed and Boss was shouting orders to Homer and
Dutchie.
"Stand by me, girlie," Queenie directed. She stood a
safe distance away from the fire and positioned him so
that he was slightly behind her.
After an hour Boss and the boys had the fire under
control.
Queenie called out: "Boss, are you all right?"
Boss nodded, sweat pouring down his smoke-grimed face.
"Yeh, I'm fine. Homer, Dutchie: you OK?"
The two boys nodded.
"Oh, I'm so relieved you're not hurt!" Queenie cried in
the most gushing, effusive and emotional voice she could
muster. "Blondie and I were... were so afraid! We wanted
to help but we couldn't -- could we, girlie?"
Boss and the two boys looked at her and then at Blondie.
'Feast you eyes on girlie, boys!' Queenie said gleefully
to herself. 'Isn't Blondie the picture of feminine
helplessness??? One hand holding a silk shawl around him
to keep warm and the other holding his pretty night-gown
up off the damp grass! Take a look at his hair!?!
Gentlemen, have you ever seen a head so festooned
with... ribbons? I can guess what you're thinking:
girlie's too busy making himself look pretty that he
couldn't put out a fire let alone a candle!!!'
Boss spat at the ground. Then, a slow smile creased his
face and he turned to Homer and Dutchie.
"Y'know, the more I see of the value of some women, the
more I like dogs!" he quipped to Homer and Dutchie's
raucous laughter.
++++
From time to time Blondie had what Queenie would
describe as 'teenage tantrums'. She learnt to recognize
the warning symptoms and the treatment she devised was
remarkably successful in smothering any rebelliousness.
The tantrums were usually sparked off by Blondie venting
his anger and frustration at new rules she imposed on
him. Sometimes the sense of being hopelessly enmeshed in
the feminine net she was gradually tightening around him
caused the boy to erupt.
His gradual loss of physical strength was another source
of intense frustration as were her restrictions on his
diet. Occasionally, she would deliberately goad him into
a tantrum: the easiest way to do that, she found, was to
remind him how he had been rejected by men for men's
work (by implication he was only suitable, therefore,
for women's work).
Two days previously when she had caught him eating
cooked meat which he was supposed to have been slicing,
the most recent tantrum had developed.
"Leave me alone!" he screamed as she dragged him
upstairs. "I hate you!"
He was sobbing by the time she pushed him into his
bedroom.
"I was hungry!" he wept. "I haven't eaten meat for
months!"
"You should have known better, you little hussy! You'll
eat when I tell you can!" Queenie snapped, tying his
wrists together. "How do you expect to keep your figure
if you keep eating between meals?"
"Let me gooooooooooooo!" the boy screamed. "I don't
waaaaaaaaant to be a girrlllllll! Pleeeeaaaaaseeeee let
me go!"
He tried to kick her but the impact was muted by the
heavy layers of petticoats and skirts he wore.
"I hate you, I haaaaaaattttte you!" he shrieked.
Ignoring him, Queenie went over to the closet and
cleared a space between the racks of dresses.
"Come over here!" she snapped.
"Nooooooooo, I won't," Blondie wept defiantly. "You
can't maaaaaake me!"
Queenie's action was swift and decisive.
"Oh, I can't, can I not?" she asked airily a minute
later. "You look a pretty sight, girlie, surrounded by
these lovely dresses!" Then she scoffed: "Let me know
which one you want to wear when you cool down..."
She went downstairs to continue her work. When she had
dressed him first, there had been twenty tantrums that
month -- she remembered each and every one of them. She
looked at her diary: today had been the only tantrum so
far this month; there had been three in the previous
month, five the month before that: the futility of
resisting was beginning to sink in...
Three hours later she went back up to his bedroom.
Spreading out her skirts she sat on his bed and took out
her embroidery frame.
The boy was exhausted from trying to keep his balance;
he kept looking despairingly up at the clothes railing
above his head to which Queenie had attached his wrists.
She had fixed it that he could just about stand on his
tip-toes in the closet. Tear stains ran like dried-up
rivers through his make-up.
"Let me go!" the boy sobbed.
"Are you sorry?"
There was a silence. She could see the boy hesitating.
If he refused he would spend another three hours in the
closet (and miss dinner).
"Yes, I'm sorry, Queenie," he replied in a low voice.
"I won't eat again... without your permission."
"I think you have suffered enough, girlie," she said.
"But before I release you, have you made up your mind?"
The boy looked at her and then up at his bound wrists.
Queenie gloated inwardly: 'This is hard on you, Blondie,
real hard,' she said gleefully to herself, 'you get
punished for reacting against all this femininity and
then to set yourself free you have to decide what you're
going to wear for the rest of the day!'
"The... red and black check dress," he said quietly.
Queenie said nothing but eyed him beadily.
"Forgive me, Queenie, I meant to say: I want to wear the
red and black check dress."
"I'm pleased with your choice, girlie," she commented
approvingly. Then, she added in a silky voice: "Tell me,
girlie, why do you want to wear such a pretty dress?"
Queenie waited for the boy to answer; he knew by now
there was only one answer she would permit.
"Because... because..." the boy started and then
stopped.
She raised her eyebrows expectantly.
"Because I want to wear..." the boy continued in a
faltering voice. He looked up at her and hurriedly
gulped: "I want... I'd like... a dress that'll make men
sit up and take notice of me."
Queenie nodded sagely.
"That's the reason why we all want to wear a pretty
dress, girlie -- and the woman who says otherwise is
telling a lie. We live in an age where, sadly, men don't
appreciate our intellectual abilities -- you've seen how
Boss and the boys just ignore you now. The only way we
can impress men is to emphasize our natural
attractions," she said, reaching up to untie his wrists.
"Come on, girlie, let me help you into this dress. I'll
freshen your make-up too -- you don't want them to see
that you've been crying!" she offered in a friendly
voice. Then she added with a smile: "I've a treat for
you, girlie: I bought some lovely new silk ribbons
that'll look real pretty in your hair!"
Though Queenie had reduced Blondie to a passive,
submissive and feminine state underneath the surface she
felt there still burned a masculine ego. He still acted
as if he had nothing in common with her. He would only
choose his clothes for the following day if she made
him.
Queenie decided it was time to step up his acceptance of
his femininity. She wrote a letter to her cousin Anita
explaining what she had in mind.
++++
"Hey, Dutchie, you still awake?"
"Yeah."
"You know what I saw when Boss sent me back to fetch the
ax?"
Dutchie turned over in his bed to face Homer. They'd
forgotten to bring an ax with them when they'd left in
the morning and Boss had detailed Homer to go back and
get it. Normally, Boss didn't like them going off on
their own in case they'd try to escape. Just like Boss,
Dutchie reflected bitterly, to give a job like that to
somebody who was less smarter than himself.
"No, what?" he replied.
"I saw Blondie..." Homer started.
"So what? You see Blondie every day," Dutchie
interrupted irritably.
"When is the last time you saw Blondie tied up and
gagged?" Homer prompted.
"You saw Blondie tied up and gagged?" Dutchie replied in
surprise.
"Sure did!" Homer asserted.
"Why? Why did Queenie do that? What did she say to you?"
Dutchie demanded.
"Queenie? She never saw me!" Homer replied triumphantly.
"Homer! Are you playing tricks on me?" Dutchie exclaimed
warningly. "You know Queenie would see -- and hear --
you coming a mile away!"
"But I didn't ride all the way back to the farm..."
Homer started.
"You didn't ride all the way back? Why not?" Dutchie
challenged.
"Well, you know... we've both wondered what Queenie and
Blondie get up to each day," Homer replied slowly. "So,
I decided I'd leave my horse near the bend in the creek
and sneak up to the house!"
Dutchie nodded. He had felt insanely jealous of Homer's
good luck; now he felt that jealousy returning.
"So that's what kept you so long," he observed sourly.
"Yeah," Homer replied. "I didn't see them outside so I
figured they must've been inside. I made it up to the
kitchen window unnoticed."
"What did you see?" Dutchie demanded impatiently.
"Like I said, I saw Blondie with his hands tied behind
his back and gagged!" Homer replied.
"How? What!?!" Dutchie couldn't contain himself.
"Quit interrupting, Dutchie!" Homer exclaimed. "Blondie
was sitting on a chair beside the table and on the table
was this bottle and beside the bottle was a spoon with
this red liquid!"
"Go on!" breathed Dutchie. "What was Queenie doing?"
"Queenie was talking to him and she was pointing to the
spoon. She was motioning to take it but Blondie kept
shaking his head!" Homer said.
"What did Queenie do then?" Dutchie asked.
"She pointed to a plate of food on the table and shook
her finger!" Homer replied.
"And what happened then?"
"She took the plate and walked off!" Homer said.
"Did Queenie see you?" Dutchie demanded.
"No, she never saw me -- but Blondie did!" Homer replied
excitedly.
"Blondie saw you?" Dutchie whistled in surprise.
"Yeah, looked real frightened!" Homer continued.
"Frightened?"
"Yeah, that's right, real frightened," Homer continued.
"Kept motioning his head at the spoon on the table!"
"The spoon on the table?"
Homer nodded: "Yeah, the spoon with the red liquid. Then
Blondie started doing this."
Homer sat up on the bed and threw out his chest as far
as he could.
"Yeah!?!" Dutchie whispered in amazement.
"Yeah," Homer went on. "Throwing out his chest and
nodding his head at the spoon!"
"Go on!" Dutchie urged.
"Then Blondie started pressing his legs together like
this," Homer continued. He sat on the edge of his bed
and pressed his upper legs together and drawing in his
hips as tight as he could, pushed his rear in rocking
motions deeper into the mattress.
"He was doing that? Why?" Dutchie asked, puzzled.
"Don't know, couldn't make it out!" Homer replied,
looking at Dutchie hopefully. "I thought you might be
able to figure it out!"
"No, I can't, this red liquid made Blondie stick his
chest out... and keeping his legs together, made him
pull something in... no, it doesn't make sense, Homer.
But I'll sleep on it!" Dutchie replied slowly. "What
happened then?"
"Blondie burst into tears; kept pleading with his eyes
for me to do something!" Homer replied. "But then
Queenie came back and I had to run!"
Later, as Dutchie fell into an uneasy sleep, images of
the spoon with the red liquid flashed through his
uncomprehending mind.
Part Five
"I overheard Homer and Dutchie talking about you
yesterday."
While Queenie waited for Blondie to react she started to
lace him into the new whale-bone corset she had bought.
Starting at the top lace and working her way down, she
pulled firmly on the two ends of each lace and knotted
them together.
For the past week she had kept Blondie isolated from
Boss and the two boys -- she had forbade him to be even
in the same room with them. She had confined him to the
kitchen at meal-times and locked him in his bedroom at
other times they were around. When they were alone
together she had told him stories -- some real, some
fictitious -- though all with the same theme: the
vulnerability of women living in isolated farmsteads to
being terrorized by gangs of marauding men.
Right now, Queenie could see the boy was in two minds --
she had reckoned he would be interested in hearing what
Homer and Dutchie had been saying about him but at the
same time he wouldn't want to engage her in
conversation. She reckoned too that he would want to
know where Boss and the boys had gone.
"Yes?"
"Yes," she echoed. 'Come on, girlie, you've shown you're
interested -- you can't go back now!' she said gleefully
to herself.
As she worked her way down to his waist she pushed her
knee into the small of his back to gain greater
leverage. She could see the corset beginning to compress
his waist into the desired shape.
"What did they say about me?"
Queenie didn't reply immediately. Inwardly, she was
gloating: 'My, Blondie! Six whole words -- that's more
than you said all of yesterday!' Then she chuckled
aloud. "Men can be so ignorant about women at times!"
she exclaimed with a rueful laugh.
Blondie went pale and in a hurt tone asked: "What do you
mean? What were they saying about me? Please tell me!"
Queenie took hold of another lace and started to draw
the ends together.
"You remember yesterday when you dropped those spoons in
the kitchen at breakfast?" she asked. "Take another deep
breath, Blondie."
"Yes, I do: why?" Blondie replied, puzzled. He inhaled
and then grimaced with discomfort as the corset squeezed
his waist further.
"You remember Dutchie wanted to go in and help you pick
them up but I wouldn't let him?" Queenie continued.
"Yes, what about it?" Blondie answered. A warm glow
briefly surfaced on the boy's face and disappeared just
as quickly -- but not before Queenie noticed it.
"Dutchie's such a gentleman, isn't he, girlie," she
observed smoothly.
"What were they saying about me?" the boy cried
impatiently.
"They were talking about the way you picked up the
spoons," Queenie replied enigmatically. She chuckled to
herself inwardly: 'I'm teasing you, Blondie! You'll have
to talk to me eventually -- and in the way I taught
you!'
"The way I picked up the spoons? I don't understand!"
Blondie cried in frustration. "Tell me!"
Queenie didn't reply; she continued lacing the corset.
The boy glanced over his shoulder at her. "I'm sorry,
Queenie, it wasn't very lady-like of me to talk to you
like that," he said meekly. "Please tell me: what did
they say about me?"
"They were trying to figure out why you picked up the
spoons like you did," Queenie responded.
"I still don't understand," the boy replied, shaking his
head.
"They were wondering why you had to bend from the knees
and why you had to keep your back straight," Queenie
said.
"Oh."
Queenie finished lacing the corset. It was longer than
any he had worn previously, reaching down to the middle
of his thighs.
"Like I said: men can be so ignorant about women!" she
said breezily. She let him digest this in silence as she
handed him a pair of stockings from the bed.
As she watched him pull one stocking at a time up his
smooth, hairless legs and fasten them to the suspenders,
she reminded herself -- not for the first time either --
how most women would kill to have shapely legs like his.
When he was finished she passed him the first of his
petticoats from the bed.
'This is your least favorite underskirt, girlie!' she
said to herself as she watched him step in to the lace-
trimmed garment and pull it up to his waist. 'You detest
the way it squeezes your legs together! You despise,
too, the way it makes you take little dainty steps! Most
of all, you hate the way it makes you feel vulnerable --
vulnerable in a way only a woman can understand: like
us, if you're threatened by a man, you know you won't be
able to run!'
Four more petticoats followed; then, instead of giving
him the dress she had laid out on the bed she went over
to the closet and picked out a Sunday outfit. She knew
he'd realise the significance of her choosing a frilly
dress rather than the week-day dress on the bed: it
meant the men weren't around, it meant not having to
tidy up after them, not having to cook, it meant having
a day to themselves, a day of tranquillity, a day
embroidering up at Lady's View with only the babbling
sounds of the river below to disturb them.
"Where did they go last night?"
It was the question Queenie had been expecting all
morning.
"Did the men not tell you?" she asked insouciantly,
taking the dress off its hanger. "Maybe they didn't want
to frighten you!"
"Tell me what?" the boy asked, mystified and alarmed.
"Frighten me about what?"
Queenie gathered the dress up in her arms and lifted it
over the boy's head.
"Newsome's homestead -- a half a day's ride from here --
gang of five men looted the place -- killed Pa Newsome,"
she said in between guiding one arm into the sleeve and
then the next and lowering the dress down over his
slender frame.
"They killed someone?!" Blondie asked, horrified.
"Sure did," Queenie answered, pulling at the hem of the
dress to make it sit better on the layers of petticoats.
Then, she added ominously: "And they raped Ma Newsome
and her two daughters... "
"They what?" the boy breathed in horror.
Queenie closed her eyes momentarily as if in silent
prayer and nodded her head.
"Where are they now?"
"Who?"
"The gang -- the men who raped..."
"Don't know, girlie. Boss and the boys have gone to join
a posse to find them."
"But they could be coming this way!" Blondie yelped.
"Who's going to protect us... what will we do if they
come, Queenie? We're defenceless!"
Queenie finished buttoning his dress at back.
"Don't fret, girlie," she commented comfortingly. "If
anybody comes just stay close to my side. I'll see that
nothing happens to you."
Inwardly, Queenie was exhilarated: Blondie was reacting
in a way that exceeded her wildest dreams. 'I can't wait
for the new potion that Anita is sending to arrive!' she
thought ecstatically to herself as she tied the sash of
his dress at back.
"What'll happen if they realize I'm a..." the panic-
stricken boy started to say.
Queenie put her finger to his lips.
"You mean what will happen when they realize you're a
virgin? That's what you meant to say, girlie, isn't it?"
she replied soothingly but with a menacing undertone.
Blondie nodded his head nervously.
"I won't let any man near you and even if they did they
wouldn't be able to take off that corset!" she said
jokingly to show him she wasn't worried.
She ran her fingers through the lace frills of his
bodice and looked into his terror-filled eyes.
"I guess that's why the men didn't tell you anything,
girlie," she said softly, leading him over to the mirror
to do his hair. "They didn't want you to get all jittery
or anything, girlie... there's nothing worse than a man
hates in these situations than a panicky female... "
++++
The sun was just past its zenith by the time they
reached Lady's View. Below them the river snaked lazily
to the east.
"I join you in a minute, girlie," Queenie said. "I'm
just going to pick some flowers over there."
Blondie nodded and spreading out his skirts sat down on
the bench.
Queenie walked on for a few yards stooping to pick
flowers here and there. When she returned she saw that
Blondie had started on his embroidery frame.
"You look so pretty!" she exclaimed admiringly. "You
know I wore that dress for my eighteenth birthday!"
The boy blushed and nodded.
"Yes, you told me," he confirmed in a low, whispered
voice.
"Everyone admired it on me; I felt so pretty and... so
special!" Queenie replied dreamily. "So special... I
wanted to wear it forever!"
She sat down on the bench beside him.
"I never dreamed anyone else would wear it!" she
exclaimed. "But it looks gorgeous on you, girlie, and
you know how to look after it!"
Blondie blushed again.
There was silence before Queenie spoke again.
"Who taught you, girlie? Who taught you how to look
after a dress like that?" she asked.
"You did!" he replied hesitantly.
Queenie shook her head.
"No, girlie... leastways, I wasn't the first! I was
observing you out of the corner of my eye when you sat
down on the bench. I saw you smooth your skirts behind
you when you sat down. It was an instinctive thing; you
didn't have to do it -- you knew I wasn't watching!" she
pointed out. "It was a revelation to watch you, girlie:
you did it so naturally, so unconsciously! I bet my
bottom dollar that's what a pretty dress does to you!"
Blondie shook his head.
"Is no the true answer, girlie?" Queenie asked softly.
"You recall I told you about Mrs. Mellon's throw away
remark that all you lacked was a dress to be taken for a
girl but that hadn't always been the case in the past?"
Blondie said nothing and pointedly continued with his
embroidery.
"I thought you might be interested to hear that I wrote
to her last month for clarification. She told me the
story... or maybe you'd like to tell me yourself,
girlie?" Queenie let her question hang in the air.
She saw her companion's lip tremble but he said nothing.
"This is hard on you, isn't it, girlie? Your past
catching up on you," she murmured sympathetically. "It
was your big sister who started it, wasn't it?"
Blondie didn't reply.
"Mrs. Mellon said she was a real beauty who loved pretty
clothes, but she was frustrated being the eldest of four
boys and not having any sister to enjoy!" Queenie said.
"So when you came along -- as a baby, you were weak and
undersized for your sex -- she resolved to make a sister
out of you. Of course, she couldn't do that without your
mother's knowledge and approval with whom she had a very
close relationship. Having provided your father with
four male heirs, your mother concluded that she had made
her contribution and turned a blind eye. Being both the
youngest and physically small for your age, you were
picked on unmercifully by your four elder brothers. Your
sister offered to protect you from your heartless
brothers. Her protection, though, came with a price: you
had to become her little sister! Once she had you in a
dress and looking pretty, she made you feel safe! But,
best of all, she made you feel cherished and appreciated
-- and beautiful!"
Queenie paused to see if Blondie would say anything but
he remained silent.
"She transformed you into such a sweet and winsome
little sister that it wasn't long before your mother put
her inhibitions behind her and she too became involved!"
Queenie continued. "And with your father being away in
the navy they had a free hand! Catching the fever at the
age of three gave your sister the pretext to move you
into her room so she could nurse you. The only thing,
girlie, was this wasn't a temporary move, this was for
good -- you never moved back in with your brothers
again!"
"The two most powerful women in your life, girlie,
dressing you up as a girl! They made you feel special
and wanted! And you loved every minute of it! You were
the center of their attention and you loved it! You
adored feeling pretty! You were captivated by the
beautiful clothes they dressed you in! They taught you
everything about being a girl -- and you lapped it up
like a sponge!" Queenie went on. "And being the 'new'
girl in your family, your brothers dared not touch you
for fear of bringing the wrath of your mother and sister
on top of them! You were safe! But you were only secure
as long as your mother and sister treated you as a girl.
You had to constantly reassure them that not only did
you like dressing as a girl but you wanted to be like
one as well! And that, girlie, was how you lived the
first seven years of your existence!"
Queenie reached over and squeezed Blondie's arm.
"Then, one by one, your family was struck down by the
plague," she went on. "You were heart-broken and going
to the orphanage nearly destroyed you. Suddenly, you had
to put all your past behind you and to survive the
orphanage you had to be Mr. Tough Guy! But deep inside
you, buried deep in your innermost core, were those
feminine qualities, waiting for a moment -- any moment -
- to reveal themselves!"
"That's... that's not true!" Blondie whispered hoarsely.
Queenie saw tear drops falling on his embroidery frame.
"Yes, girlie, it is true!" Queenie asserted quietly and
firmly. "Only some last vestige of misplaced masculine
pride is preventing you from revealing your true
feelings! You're not in the orphanage now! Leave your
tough little guy act behind, girlie! It's artificial, a
sham -- I've seen through it! You're here with me,
girlie! I want you to be the real you! I want the little
girl..."
"Nooooooo!" Blondie wept, his face in his hands.
"Listen to me, girlie! You were raised as a girl -- and
you loved every moment of it! I want the little girl in
you to return! To feel pretty and dainty! Embrace your
feminine nature, girlie, stop running from it! Accept it
and enjoy it!" Queenie said gently. "It's your destiny,
girlie: you can't change your fate any more than the
river below can change its path. You're fated for
femininity!"
Blondie shook his head.
Queenie sighed. "If I can't convince you now, then maybe
you'll listen to your body," she said cryptically.
Part 6
"Girlie! What brings you here?"
Oh Dutchie -- you gave me such a fright!" Blondie
gasped, his hands automatically clasping his bosom.
"Where's Queenie? How come she's let you out on your
own?" Dutchie demanded.
"Shssssshhhhh! She's in the kitchen. Don't talk so loud
-- she might hear us -- she'd give me a scolding if she
caught me talking to you!" Blondie whispered.
"Why doesn't she allow you to talk to us?" Dutchie
asked, perplexed. "You haven't said a word to me or
Homer in months!"
The younger boy's pale face colored with embarrassment.
He shrugged his shoulders helplessly.
"Come on, Blondie!" Dutchie pressed. "You must know a
reason!"
"She... " the younger boy started but didn't finish.
"Why, for pete's sake, Blondie, why?" Dutchie exploded
impatiently.
"She says... she says I've nothing to learn from men,"
Blondie answered in a low voice.
"You've nothing to learn from men?!" Dutchie repeated
incredulously.
Fighting back tears, Blondie nodded.
"What have you learnt from her? How to look like a
woman? How to wear a dress?" Dutchie demanded, his voice
rising in anger. "How to be a woman... is that it,
Blondie?"
Blondie made no reply but his expressive, limpid and
kohl-rimmed eyes silently implored Dutchie not to
continue.
>From her hiding place which allowed her to see and hear
everything that went on in the barn Queenie grinned.
'You could cut the silence in there with a knife!' she
gleefully said to herself.
'You've got two ways in which you can react, girlie,'
she thought. 'Firstly, you can pretend you're still Mr.
Tough Guy underneath your feminine finery or, secondly,
you can respond in the way that corresponds with the way
you look and with the way I've taught you.' Her
intuition told her that Blondie would follow the latter
course.
She congratulated herself on the new dress she had
purchased for Blondie. It simply radiated femininity;
rose-colored in a mixture of silk and cotton voile, its
exquisitely embroidered bodice hinted at a developing
bust-line. Beside the large and muscular Dutchie, the
dress made Blondie look elegant and petite.
Back inside the barn it was Dutchie who eventually broke
the silence.
"It's not raining in here, is it?" he said curtly,
looking at Blondie's head.
"Uh..." Blondie gasped in bewilderment. Then, realizing
what Dutchie was referring to, his slender hands rose
and carefully lifted off the shawl covering his hair.
The boy subconsciously tucked a strand of stray hair
behind his ear. He noticed Dutchie glaring at the shawl
in his hand.
"My hair is so long now: if it gets wet, it takes ages
to dry!" Blondie smiled apologetically. Then seeing that
Dutchie still had a glare on his faced added with a
pout: "Anyway, Queenie made me!"
"Does she really make you wear dresses all the time?"
Dutchie blurted out.
Blondie, his cheeks reddening, was about to make a reply
when a movement caught his attention.
"Oh look -- a foal! It's so pretty!" he cooed, lifting
his skirts and going over to the animal lying in the
straw.
"You poor creature, you're shivering!" Blondie
exclaimed, kneeling down. "Is she frightened of me,
Dutchie?"
"I guess she's never seen a boy in a dress before"
Dutchie commented acidly.
Blondie flinched but said nothing.
"How old is she?" he asked, gently stroking the foal
with his hand.
"She's three days old," Dutchie replied.
"Where's her mother?"
"Out back yonder -- she doesn't want to know," Dutchie
said.
"That's why I'm looking after her."
"The poor thing!" Blondie cooed sympathetically. Then,
he gave a squeal of delight: "Look, Dutchie, she's
licking my ring! She thinks it's food! Isn't it pretty,
darling, look at the way it sparkles in the light!"
There was a silence before Dutchie spoke.
"Does Queenie still keep you tied up?" he asked. "Me and
Homer saw you once with your hands tied behind your
back."
"You saw me like that? When?" Blondie asked, surprized.
"Oh, I don't remember when exactly... it was a long time
ago, we saw you through your bedroom window."
"That was a long time ago," Blondie agreed.
"So she doesn't tie you up any more?"
"No, not now..." Blondie responded slowly. "I guess she
knows I won't..."
"Escape?" Dutchie finished.
Blondie nodded.
"Why not, girlie, I mean, Blondie? Why couldn't you
escape?" Dutchie pressed.
Blondie sighed and stood up to face Dutchie. He shook
some straws from his dress.
"Look at me," the youngster said. "What do you see?"
Dutchie looked confused.
"I see you..." he replied slowly.
Blondie shook his head impatiently.
"I've changed, Dutchie, I'm no longer the person you
knew," the slightly built youngster said. "Queenie's
changed me -- look at me again, Dutchie, and tell me
what you really see!"
"I see a boy in... in a dress..." Dutchie began slowly
and then stopped.
"Go on," Blondie prompted.
"That's all," Dutchie said weakly.
"That's all? Oh, Dutchie, there's much more -- much
more!" Blondie exclaimed with feeling. "Look at my hair:
it's braided. You know who braided it this morning? I
did! Yes, Dutchie, I braided it (I did it in ten minutes
-- it used to take me half an hour!). Yesterday I had
pony-tails, I did them too! I can do everything a girl
can do with her hair!"
Dutchie said nothing.
"Do you know what happened to me yesterday?" Blondie
went on. "I finished my first ever embroidery frame
without any help from Queenie!"
Dutchie shook his head in silent astonishment.
"I'll let you in on a secret, Dutchie: do you know what
gave me my biggest thrill lately?"
Dutchie shook his head again. He saw Blondie suck in a
deep breath of air.
"See this dress I'm wearing?" Blondie asked.
Dutchie nodded: "Yeah, what about it?"
"I got it two weeks ago..." Blondie started.
"What about it?" Dutchie repeated.
"Oh, Dutchie, don't you notice anything?" Blondie asked
in exasperation. Seeing the blank look on his
companion's face he went on with a sigh: "You wouldn't
notice these things but a woman would."
"Notice what?" Dutchie snorted.
"First of all, it's a new dress and it's all the fashion
on the east coast --" Blondie began.
"And that gave you your biggest thrill? That it's
fashionable on the east coast?" Dutchie asked in
wonderment.
"No, well... maybe a little bit," Blondie conceded. "No,
Dutchie, my biggest thrill was that it was my first
dress!"
"Your first dress?" Dutchie asked, confused.
"Yes, Dutchie, this is _my_ dress," Blondie answered
quietly. "You see, up to now I've being wearing
Queenie's hand-me-downs. They never really fitted me.
Queenie got this dress specially for me. I know you
won't understand, Dutchie, but it makes me feel like a
new person..."
>From her hiding place Queenie could see the look of
distaste on Dutchie's face. She decided it was time to
intervene; she was pleased with how Blondie had reacted
so far. Her intuition told her that Blondie was ready
for the second acid test of femininity she had planned.
She called Blondie making it sound like she was calling
from the kitchen.
"Dutchie, that's Queenie calling, I've got to go!"
Blondie said to Dutchie in a panic.
"What did you come here for?" Dutchie asked quickly.
"She asked me to get a bag of potatoes," Blondie
replied.
"They're over there," Dutchie said, pointing to the far
corner of the barn behind him.
He stepped back to let Blondie pass. As he did so,
Queenie saw him wrinkle his nose. 'Yes, Dutchie, I know
what you're thinking,' she said to herself, 'he smells
like one too!'
Blondie found the bag and tried to lift it.
Queenie chuckled to herself when she saw Blondie look
around: there was a look of recognition on his face.
'Good for you, Blondie! Your feminine intuition has just
told you that I've set you up! You've just realized two
things --
One: a girl wouldn't be expected to lift a heavy sack of
potatoes. Two: even if she had to, she certainly
wouldn't be wearing her best dress!' she giggled to
herself. 'Let's see how you get out of this situation!
I've told you a thousand times: the number one rule for
any girl in your predicament is to use your womanly
charms to get a man to help you.'
She saw Blondie look at Dutchie.
"Dutchie, could you help me with this sack please?" he
asked sweetly. "It's too heavy for me: I need someone
big and strong like you."
Dutchie's mouth fell open in astonishment; then without
a word he went over to where Blondie was standing and
effortlessly lifted the sack over his shoulder.
"Thank you, Dutchie, you're such a gentleman!" Blondie
smiled up at him in gratitude.
Dutchie grunted in embarrassment.
Seeing that it was still raining outside Blondie threw
the shawl over his head and keeping his skirts lifted
off the wet grass led the way back to the house.
++++
"I feel sick!" Blondie announced suddenly.
"What's the matter, girlie?" Queenie asked.
"My tummy feels like I've a cramp," Blondie complained.
"Maybe you'd like to lie down for a little while?"
Queenie suggested sympathetically. "Come with me."
Surprized, Blondie nodded and followed the woman
upstairs to his bedroom. She made him take off his ankle
boots and lie on the bed. Dampening a cloth in a bowl of
water she wiped his brow.
"You see if you can get some sleep," she said softly.
The boy looked at her with suspicion but then his eyes
closed as he drifted off to sleep. The woman smiled: he
plainly wasn't used to this caring treatment from her.
She left the room and went downstairs.
Later in the evening she went up to the room. The room
was bathed in moon-light and she saw that the boy was
half awake.
"There's a full moon tonight," Queenie commented
conversationally as she closed the curtains. The boy
tried to sit up in bed.
"How are you now, girlie?" she asked.
"OK," he started. Then, he groaned in pain: "Something's
not right... my drawers feel damp..."
"Let me have a look," Queenie said commandingly. She
peered between his petticoats and then reached in to
take off his drawers.
"Just a little bit of blood," she said calmly, showing
him the soiled drawers.
"Blood!" the boy moaned in terror. "I'm going to die!"
"There's no need to worry, girlie, I'll put something on
to soak anything more up," Queenie replied soothingly.
"The first time is the worst. You'll be all right in a
few days. In the meantime, get plenty of rest."
Queenie refused to answer any of his queries regarding
the discharge of blood but assured him that it would
pass.
The boy was excused from duties for the next two days.
He stayed in bed and Queenie attended to him day and
night. Gradually, his cramps disappeared and his
appetite returned.
Four weeks went by and then the cramps re-appeared.
Queenie gave him the same sympathetic treatment as
before excusing him from work. She changed his soiled
drawers regularly. At night-time she sat by his bedroom
window doing her embroidery in the light of the moon.
Queenie guessed he was too proud to ask her what was
happening to him but she knew that he was scared.
As before and as Queenie had foretold, after two days he
was well enough again to return to his duties.
One morning a week later they were getting ready to do
the laundry. Queenie was an irritable mood that day and
had given Blondie a number of verbal tongue lashes. She
sent him up to her bedroom to collect clothes for the
laundry knowing full well what he would see. They washed
the clothes outside in the large wooden tub; Blondie
made no comment when a red stain ran from her white
drawers.
Three weeks later Blondie's cramps returned. This time
she didn't allow him to go to bed despite his obvious
discomfort. Instead she bought him up to his bedroom
every few hours to change his drawers.
When Boss and the boys returned that evening they found
Queenie had prepared their favorite meal. She even
allowed Homer and Dutchie to have beer with their dinner
-- something she had never allowed before. It wasn't
long before the sound of shouting and drunken laughter
filled the room. She and Blondie had their dinner
quietly in the kitchen.
"I think they're finished inside now, girlie, bring in
the dishes," Queenie told her assistant a little later.
Queenie watched as the boy gathered his skirts and check
his appearance in the mirror as she had taught him
before going hesitantly into the room where Boss and the
boys were eating. Queenie noted with glee how they made
fun of Blondie's pale and drawn appearance. Then winking
to each other the men raised their empty beer mugs.
"More beer, girlie!" they teased him, pulling at the
sleeves of his dress to grab his attention.
When Blondie returned to the kitchen Queenie noticed
that he was close to tears.
"Why didn't you allow me to lie down today like the last
time?" he complained bitterly.
"Because you don't see me lying down, do you?" she
snapped.
"But you don't have..." the boy started and then fell
silent. Queenie smiled to herself: he had made the
connection. She took Blondie by the arm and led him up
to his bedroom. She sat the puzzled boy down on the bed.
"Look out the window," she told him.
"What's there to see? I can't see anything," he said,
mystified. "It's dark outside. There's only the moon..."
"Only the moon," Queenie repeated cryptically.
"That's it! I always get the cramps... when there's a
moon..." Blondie said slowly, looking up at her.
Queenie said nothing.
"It's something about the moon that gives me the
cramps!" Blondie cried.
Queenie smiled and shook her head.
"What is it then? Please tell me!" her younger companion
pleaded, his voice suddenly trembling with emotion.
She sat down on the bed beside Blondie and held his arms
in against his sides.
"It's not the moon, girlie," she said softly. "It's just
your time of the month..."
"My time of the month?!" Blondie bleated in terror.
"What do you mean?"
"Your time of the month is now, girlie. Next week it
will be my turn," Queenie replied enigmatically.
"You mean I'll have cramps every month?" Blondie cried
in despair.
Queenie nodded.
"It's... it's so... so awful..." the boy said wildly.
"Who said being a female was easy?" Queenie replied
calmly.
The boy looked shocked. Queenie had trained him to
verbally deny his gender; now she seemed to be
suggesting something else...
"Girlie, every female gets these cramps: they're your
body's way of preparing you for womanhood..." Queenie
began.
"Agggggghhhhhhh! I don't believe it!" Blondie screamed
hysterically.
Queenie shook the sobbing, quivering boy.
"Hush, girlie, and listen to me!" she urged.
Blondie's sobs eventually subsidised.
"You're a girl now -- the cramps you get prove that
without a shadow of doubt!" Queenie continued. "Boss
doesn't get them; nor does Homer or Dutchie. Just you
and me, girlie."
Blondie opened his mouth to say something but no words
came out.
"Men don't understand what a woman has to go through
every month -- the pain, the discomfort, the misery.
They don't know and even if they did they wouldn't care.
Did Boss or Homer show any signs of caring earlier this
evening for what you're going through?" she challenged.
Then she added with a wry smile: "Or even Dutchie?"
Remembering his treatment at the dinner table, Blondie
the boy slowly shook his head.
"I do, girlie, I know what it's like," Queenie continued
softly. "I can help you, girlie, but you must let me
help you."
"How?" Blondie sniffed.
Queen spoke to her younger companion for over an hour.
"So, remember, girlie, the golden rule is?" she asked in
conclusion.
"Women must stick together," Blondie gulped.
"I think you can do better than that, girlie," she
prompted gently.
There was a silence. Queenie raised her eye-brows
expectantly.
"We... we women must stick together," came the whispered
reply.
++++
"I can't make it out," Dutchie said.
"Can't make what out?" Homer replied.
It was Sunday afternoon and they were lying on the river
bank.
"You know, girlie, I mean, Blondie," Dutchie replied.
"What about girlie?" Homer returned.
"I dunno, something's changed... between Blondie and
Queenie," Dutchie said.
"Changed? Changed in what way?" Homer challenged. "I
don't see any change. It's been the same for the last
few months."
"Well, take a look at them up there," Dutchie said,
nodding his head in the direction of the hill
overlooking the river.
Homer turned around and looked.
"They're just talking, that's all," he said.
"Well, that's a change, that's a big change!" Dutchie
observed. "In the beginning you'd never see them talking
-- or even sitting together. Blondie used to have to
stand up all the time or sit alone on a rug. Homer,
look! They're laughing!"
"Maybe you're right, Dutchie. Queenie does seem in
better form these days. We've had beer at dinner for the
last two nights!" Homer replied with a grin on his face.
He leant back on the grass and looked up at the
cloudless blue sky. "I don't care what those two dames
do together so long as I get a beer for dinner!"
"All you think of is beer, you nit-picker!" Dutchie
exclaimed. He continued to look up in the direction of
the hill.
"Oh yeah! How come you always get more beer than I do
then?" Homer challenged.
"What? What are you talking about?"
"You know what I'm on about. Girlie always gives you
more beer than I get!" Homer observed sourly.
"Hogwash! You're imagining it, Homer!" Dutchie scoffed.
"Yes, she does, I've seen her; she's always favoring
you!" Homer charged.
Dutchie just laughed and shook his head.
"She gives you more meat too!" Homer added angrily.
"You're losing your brains, Homer, or what's left of
them!" Dutchie retorted. Then, he got up and stripped
off his trousers: "I could do with a swim. Last one to
the far side is the loser!"
++++
It was just after noon and even though it was late fall
it was still very hot.
They were sitting on a bench beneath a sycamore tree
whose leafy branches shaded them from the burning rays
of the sun.
"If I could, I'd spend all day brushing my hair!"
Queenie looked up from her sewing and smiled at her
companion. She watched as Blondie's arm rose and fell in
smooth even strokes.
"A woman can never take too much care of her hair," she
observed. "You've such beautiful hair -- it really
pleases me how well you look after it!"
Blondie gave a light, tinkling laugh: "You're so kind,
Queenie! But I know that look in your eyes -- it's time
to do my chores now... right?!"
Queenie nodded with a smile and watched her younger
companion gather the blonde shoulder-length hair and
deftly twist it into a bun, securing it with a pin. Then
Blondie picked up a shirt from a wicker basket at their
feet.
"Two holes in one day!" Blondie exclaimed in
exasperation, reaching for needle and thread. "How does
Dutchie do it?"
"I bet he didn't even notice!" Queenie chuckled. "Men
prefer not to notice these things -- nor do they care!
They'd sooner dress in rags then mend their clothes.
That's why they need us women!" she added.
They sewed in silence for a little while.
"Blondie?"
"Yes?"
"Have you thought any more about what we were talking
this morning?"
"Yes... a bit."
"Am I right?"
"Queenie... I... I don't believe I fancy Dutchie...
honest I don't!"
Queenie said nothing; Dutchie's little stammer would
have passed unnoticed but for the tell-tale blush.
Queenie, sensing Blondie's discomfiture at her direct
line of questioning, decided to change tactics.
She bent down and rummaged in the wicker basket.
"There's just this little tear in Homer's trousers,
Blondie, and we're done for today. I'll finish off
Dutchie's shirt for you if you do Homer's. Will you --?"
"No, I want to to finish this! Homer's trousers can
wait!" Blondie interrupted petulantly. "Dutchie's shirt
is more important..."
Queenie put down her sewing.
"Blondie," she began gently, "we've agreed never to keep
anything from each other... you can tell me... maybe I
can help?"
++++
"Queenie, are you finished yet? How do I look?" Blondie
asked, shivering with giddy excitement.
"Blondie, will you keep still while I fix your hem?"
Queenie replied. She stood up as Blondie struck a pose
in front of the mirror.
"That new dress really looks pretty on you!" she smiled.
"Do a twirl for me."
Blondie, standing on tip toes, pirouetted around, making
the long skirt flare out in tandem.
"Blondie, pretend I'm Dutchie: show me how you grab my
attention!" Queenie called.
With both hands Blondie lifted the cerise-colored skirt
a few inches off the ground to reveal white lace-trimmed
petticoats underneath. Then, moving towards her,
starting with the right hand and alternating with the
left, Blondie ruffed the skirt against the petticoats
making a distinctive swishing noise.
Queenie smiled: it was one of the oldest feminine
flirting tricks in the book -- instead of simultaneously
holding up your skirts and petticoats as you walked you
just held up your skirt giving men a glimpse of your
petticoats and stockinged ankle underneath.
"More... more beer, Dutchie...?" Blondie cooed demurely,
eye-lashes fluttering.
Queenie kissed Blondie on the cheek. Impulsively, they
hugged each other.
"Queenie, what will I do then?" Blondie giggled, eyes
shining bright with excitement.
"What will you do then?" Queenie mused. Then, she burst
out laughing: "You tighten the noose and you rein him
in!"
END
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
This story was written as an adult fantasy. The author
does not condone the described behavior in real life.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Kristen's collection - Directory 66