Embarrassing Moments

My whole life has been full of angst, thanks to this one event...nine years old and a hot summer morning, I opened the oak wardrobe in the bedroom I shared with my older brother, and finally decided to take my sister's party dress and petticoat off the hanger. You know what's coming. The airing cupboard was in our room too, and with my heart pounding, I pulled out a pair of her nylon frilly panties. I went weak with girlishness, innocence and pleasure. After struggling and sweating into this cute-sy frock, I heard my mother coming up the stairs calling my name. No time to get it off so in my panic I hid under the bed. But she came right in and, as I stood up, a great wave of embarrassment flooded over me, my insides like jelly, as she dumped her own embarrassment on me and made me feel wretched. By the end of the day [she] had managed to humiliate me in front of the whole family. I'm kind of coming to terms with it, but still fantasize myself about a woman discovering me in a fussy party frock and petticoat... and calling me a sissy. Weird huh? (What was in her mind?)

When I was in the 4th grade, my Cub Scout den was suppose to perform a skit for Pack Night. Our turn came in March, with a St. Patrick's Day theme. My mother "volunteered" me to play the part of an Irish Colleen, with the other boys singing traditional Irish songs to her. My sister, three years older than I, thought it was a great idea, and she helped Mom select my outfit for the skit.

They bought a short-sleeved, green gingham checked party dress for me, complete with a nylon petticoat. The skirt reached just above my knees, made a bit more "fluffy" with the petticoat. Pale green knee sox, Mary Janes, a wig and cute green hair bow completed the outfit. Oop, well..not quite... Yes, Iwore pale green "dance panties" as they called them. Full cut, nylon (they almost decided to use a ruffled tennis panty, but thought that would be "too sissy").

I felt like a little powder puff, and had some trouble stopping a strong March wind from lofting my skirts and petticoats about! My friends teased me so much that night, always trying to flip my skirt to reveal my "lil girl panty." But the worst part was the arrival of a little girl, Karen, who I had a crush on. Here I was, pretty as a picture, ...well, a picture of a little girl, blushing lollipop red as Karen giggled, asking me "how I liked wearing skirts, etc."

I got through the evening pretty well, until the last song. Just as we finished and the people were applauding, two "friends" snuck up behind me and grabbed the hem of my skirt and petti, then raised it to my waist. I looked more like an Irish can-can girl, than a Colleen!! Completely on display, lil green panty, to the world! They yelled at the boys, but it was too late!

Guess that's why I still have a weakness for petticoats and lil girl dresses. [whisper] I wish they had "made" me wear the ruffled panty!

My first of many embarrassing moments happened when I was thirteen. If you read my story in "First Encounters" you remember that I had stolen two pairs of panties and a wonderful petticoat from my cousin Bonnie and I kept them under my bed in a storage box intended for preserving dresses. Also in the box were three pairs of my mother’s nylon panties and two pairs of the landlady’s panties that I had stolen from the clothesline.

Every night after I finished my homework I would play with these frillies, and I thought I had a good thing going. Then one day when I came home from school, the dress box was laying on the floor ~ wide open. All the contents had been spilled out onto my bed. I froze.

Mother came into my bedroom and told me that she recognized the three pairs of her own panties, then said: "This petticoat and these yellow panties are the same ones you wore in Illinois, aren’t they? You stole them from Bonnie, didn’t you?" I sheepishly nodded my head up and down.

"Well, where did these other two pairs of panties come from?" she demanded to know. I admitted that I had stolen them from the landlady’s clothesline downstairs. "Well, you’ll have to give them back," she insisted.

"GIVE THEM BACK ? ? ? ?" I cried.

"Yes," Mother told me. "You will wash them ~ and fold them nicely ~ and you will then take them back to her ~ and then you will apologize to her for stealing them."

I was stunned and horrified, and my face began to burn with the anticipation of the humiliating experience to come. Mother made me gather up all the lingerie and take it downstairs to the apartment building’s basement laundry room. Once there, she ordered me to put it all in the washtub, add some soap and fill the tub with warm water. She stood there and supervised me as I washed and rinsed the delicate garments. Then she made me wash and rinse them again. And then she made me take the basket full of wet lingerie out to the clothesline and hang it all up to dry.

There were two girls who lived in the building next door, aged 9 and 11, and (just my luck) they were outside. When they saw me hanging a basket full of lingerie on the line they came over giggling up a storm. In those days, no self-respecting male would have anything to do with feminine underthings. When the girls got themselves under control they asked my mother how she had gotten me to hang up her frillies for her.

"Oh, that’s not MY lingerie," Mother answered. "It’s HIS!" Of course, the girls simply dissolved into laughter and I was red to the roots of my hair.

I spent the next few hours sweating out the time until the clothes were dry and the landlady came home. Mother made me go downstairs and take everything off the line, then fold it nicely. I separated the landlady’s panties, and tried to rehearse what I would say to her. In another hour she came home and it was curtain time.

Imagine my shame when I had to hand her back her panties and say "I stole these off your clothesline. I’m sorry."

As you might expect, she asked me why I had stolen them ~ what I had been doing with her lingerie. I couldn't answer her. Of course, you all know what I was doing, and she figured it out quickly enough.

"Were you putting them on and doing nasty things in them?" she asked. Faced with such a direct question, I sheepishly admitted it.

"I don’t want them back then," she continued. "Not if you’ve done something nasty in them. You can keep them."

Mother insisted on paying her $10. for them and told me it would come out of my allowance. Then there was nothing else to do but thank her and leave.

As I climbed back up the stairs to our apartment I thought it was finally over ~ but it wasn’t. For the next 5 years, every time the landlady saw me she would smile knowingly and ask: "Are you wearing my panties today?"

And as it turned out ~ sometimes I was.

I was "caught in the act" at least twice, while wearing my mother's clothes. It was very embarrassing and upsetting, of course, and I promised both times that I would never do it again. I tried to be careful whenever I wore her clothes, but there were two times when one of my parents came home unexpectedly. The first time, in June 1961, I had made the mistake of answering the phone and was talking to a cousin when my mother suddenly came home. She was obviously shocked, said nothing, and left immediately. A little while later she called me and said we would have to talk about this. Naturally, there was a confrontation with my father that night. They said I needed "help." I was very upset and tearfully promised never to do it again. I kept my promise for at least a year.

There were a few times when they suspected I had resumed cross-dressing, but it was several years before my father came home unexpectedly one evening and found me wearing a dress, petticoats, bra, girdle, stockings, and scarf. My mother had bought a two-layer, triple-tiered nylon chiffon petticoat about 1962 and I sometimes wore it. That was the only petticoat she ever had. It really made the dresses look full and fluffy. I enjoyed the way it felt, too. Anyway, I again promised never to do it again. After that, I did "slip" a few times. Then, about 1967, I completely stopped wearing my mother's clothes and never did it again. Later, in the fall of 1979, I bought my own female clothing and, within a few months, went public for the first time.

I was never forced to cross-dress. Once, however, I was asked if I would dress as a girl for a Cub Scout program. I refused. I hadn't started cross-dressing yet and I couldn't bear the thought of anyone laughing at me, as usually happened when a boy or man dressed as a female. After all, I was used to watching Milton Berle and other comedians in drag and they clearly did it for laughs. I was simply too sensitive to dress-up and have people laugh at me, perhaps because I had suffered enough teasing as a child because I was always tall for my age.

Much later, I would have people tell me how much they liked the way I dressed. Many people were fascinated with the many petticoats I wore. Generally, I found very few cross-dressers here would wear 1950's styles. There was one female impersonator, however, who did sometimes wear very full skirts with petticoats. Most cross-dressers I've met tend to dress as modern women.

When I was eleven years old I went to stay with my Auntie and my cousin - she is the same age as I. I really love her her name, Jennifer, but I just call her Jen.

ONE DAY I was a bit bored, and decided to explore Jennifer's bedroom; I found some of her underwear on the floor: full white underskirts, white cotton knickers, and a white vest. I took off my trousers and underpants, and tried on her panties - they felt soft. Then took off my shirt, and slipped on her underskirt. I started to play with myself in her underwear, getting so lost that a loud 'erhum' made me jump. It was my Auntie. She said, "What are you doing wearing Jennifer's underwear?" I said I just wanted to see how it felt and she just laughed saying, "From now on we will call you Michelle instead of Mickie!" I blushed, and felt really embarrassed...