Bridesmaid Brother

There is a site called Petticoat Discipline Quarterly that I'm sure most of you know. As the title suggests, it is dedicated to disciplining men by forcing them into women's clothing. In the beginning, under the editorship of the late Susan MacDonald, the site often published letters from other, real-life publications (dedicated to "alternative lifestyles"), along with their own reader's letters. Gradually, the input from the readers completely replaced the reprints from other magazines.

In 2007, Ms. MacDonald passed away and Auntie Helga took over the editorship. In my opinion, the quality of the material went south from that point. There had been some fishy letters before, but since the takeover, most of the content seemed, at least in my opinion, to be made up. Another change that the new editor brought on was making the archive of back issues available only against payment.

Inspired by these changes, I started writing fake letters to Petticoat Discipline Quarterly - always with the intent to send them, but in the end I never did. The letters are, or at least should be, basically stories in a very concentrated form. Accordingly, they were very exciting to write, but also took a lot of time, time that could have been spent writing actual stories, so I eventually stopped writing them. Looking at my archive with dozens of pages of those unfinished letters, I can't help but regret the time wasted... However, it turns out that one can find an occasional finished letter among the garbage, so as I'm probably not going to send them to Auntie Helga (the one time I did send her something, it took her months to publish it), I might as well post them here.


Older brother under younger sister's thumb

It is not common practice, but it is neither unheard of for a brother to act as a bridesmaid at his sister’s wedding. Of course, this is usually the case when the sister is senior to the brother. My son, however, was already twenty six years old when his twenty three year old sister informed the two of us rather matter-of-factly that she expected him to be her bridesmaid.

For a moment I thought that the two of them were having a joke on me until I saw my son’s horror stricken face.

“Please don’t do this, Jenny,” he whispered – almost crying – but after a mere second of silence from his younger sister, he meekly stood up and left the room.

I wanted to ask Jenny what was the meaning of that, but she started talking about her professional successes. She had started her business at 20 years, and three years later she already had fifteen employees. I listened to her with interest until Sam, my son, reappeared, wearing my floral blouse and skirt set, white shoes with a four inch heel, nylons over his apparently shaved legs, full makeup and a straw hat with a veil to match his clothes.

I watched him bashfully approach us and sit down on his old place with my mouth gaping open.

Without further ado, Jenny told me about how she had been forcing him to wear skirts and dresses since their early childhood. Being a single mother, I didn’t get to spend much time with my children. I always had the feeling that something was amiss, but I just couldn’t put my finger on it. They have both done well in school, there were never any complaints from our neighbors, as they grew older they learned to keep the house themselves, so I really couldn’t complain. However, now I learned that all this time, Jenny had been forcing her older brother to wear girls’ clothes – first from her older friends and later on, when he grew up, my own. Once she had reached puberty, Jenny has grown quite taller and stronger than Sam, but I was amazed to hear she had him in dresses when he was only nine years old – she was only five at that time! Once he was ‘properly dressed’, he effectively became her servant. All of the housework, I learned, was the fruit of his labor. Besides making him to do both his and her chores, she also made sure he did his schoolwork and, after she was 13, defended him from bullies at school.

Naturally, I was upset to learn the torture my son had gone through, but I was even more angered that Jenny had kept this a secret from me.

“You’d only have stopped it,” she replied.

Perhaps I would have, I thought. However, before we could discuss the matter further, Jenny told me that she was taking Sam – Samantha, as she called him, sorry, her – to stay with one of her friends for to prepare for the wedding, which was to take place in a week. Dressed as he was, might I add.

Again, this too came as a shock, but it had given me time to think. Ever since Jenny had left, the house wasn’t as tidy as it used to be and Sam’s performance in college severely deteriorated – I had all but given up on him ever finishing his studies. Now, I could see the reason for than.

I haven’t seen my son until the wedding. I must admit, he made a very pretty bridesmaid – he fit in very well with Jenny’s friends. After the ceremony, I had a word with Jenny – I told her that I harbored no hard feelings for what she had been doing to her brother, but I told her that I expected her cooperation when she returned from her honeymoon.

In the mean time, I dealt with Sam my own way. Once the three of us met again, it was Jenny’s turn to be shocked when she saw her brother dressed in my clothes. When he returned home with me after the wedding, he had found all of his clothes locked away. Stubbornly, he persisted in wearing his bridesmaid’s gown for the next day, but when I sent him to the store for milk and eggs, he gladly changed into my clothes.

Following Jenny’s plan, he graduated from college a year after that. During that time he was only allowed his own clothes for classes and exams. After his graduation I was happy to give him back all of his old clothes, but when I realized that he was back in his old tracks, I immediately gave them all to the Salvation Army and replaced them partly with my old clothes, partly with new clothes I bought for him.

My son still lives with me, but he is now known as Samantha. Jenny called in a favor from one of her business partners and got her older sister a job as a secretary. At times Samantha will launch into one of her tirades how she has had it and that she will go out, buy her some men’s clothes and never come back, but I know it’s only to annoy me. Just to be on the safe side, though, Jenny and I have arranged a breast augmentation surgery for Samantha’s 30^th birthday. It will be a gift she won’t easily forget.