Every Boy Should Be Treated Like a Princess on His Birthday 

            The trio of Thelma and the Sandfords decided my thirteenth birthday should be a landmark—a fancy party with me in a special dress. Of course I knew I was doomed, but I made the obvious complaint. 

            “But we can’t invite anyone. I don’t want anyone to see me like that! The petticoat discipline is a secret.” 

            “We’ll only invite the boys and girls from Sally’s party. They’ve all seen in you a dress already. And Eddie.” 

            So many things made that day the most embarrassing ever. After I stripped to my briefs, I had to put on white ankle socks and white patent leather shoes, and was given my first “birthday present”—a little gift bag.  Inside was a pair of pink panties with lace all around the leg holes. I had NEVER been forced to wear panties before and, of course, I argued, but got nowhere. Naturally, it only got worse from there.

             The dress was pale blue chiffon, and it was scary for so many reasons. It was very short, and so pale that it was almost off-white. It was “cascade” chiffon—so ruffled and girly. Worst of all, it was strapless! My shoulders would be entirely naked, along with my legs and arms. I had never been so exposed.           

            But before the dress came the petticoat, of course. It was short, made of lace and crinoline, and flared. It would seriously puff out the soft chiffon. There was no way my pink panties would be a secret from the birthday party guests! 

            I was the closest I ever came to crying, as a snickering Thelma zipped up the back of the dress—even the back was low, leaving most of my back naked and exposed.  The dress only stayed on because it was so tight in the bodice. The soft panties underneath felt horribly emasculating—like I could almost feel their pinkness!—and the chiffon was so light and delicate, I was half afraid it would just float off me. 

            I looked more ridiculous than ever, and said so. 

            “Oh, no, Preston!” said Thelma. “You look adorable. A boy should look like a princess on his thirteenth birthday! And you should feel happy to be dressed up like a big girl instead of a little girl. Isn’t this lovely chiffon dress more grown-up than your other ‘little girl’ party dresses?”

             “Does that mean I won’t be wearing those frilly dresses any more, now that I’m a teenager?”

             They just laughed, and I blushed, unable to tear my mind away from the fact that I was wearing lace-trimmed pink panties. Maybe I was thirteen now, but my maleness had never been so insulted and thrown by the wayside.

             “This looks like Army basic training meets Polly Flinders!” chuckled Mr. Sandford. That was because I’d got a shorter-than-usual haircut for my birthday, not knowing it would clash with chiffon, a flared petticoat, and bubble gum-pink girl’s undies. Oh gosh, could this ever get worse? It sure did.

             I got my next birthday present—a long string of pearls around my neck. Like the panties, another “first”—I had never been made to wear jewelry before. As the cold pearls dangled around my naked neck, I felt real tears welling up. People were going to see me like this. Despite weeks of petticoat discipline, I had never been sissified this harshly. The ONLY thing worse would be let the tears fall, to be crybaby on top of all this.

             “Hey, hot stuff,” said Mr. Sandford. “The boys are going to be wild about you, aren’t they?”

             “And now the final touch,” said his wife, reaching into her handbag. She pulled out a tube of lipstick. I nearly fainted.

             “No,” said. “I will not wear makeup. I will not wear lipstick.” I was closer than ever to crying.

             She pulled off the cap. It was bright pink.

             “No way. Please, please. No!” I had never won an argument with my petticoat disciplinarians, but this was too much. It was a level of sissification no boy could ever, ever accept.

             “Sometimes I think we succeeded too well with you, Preston!” said Thelma. “You’re behaving like a bratty little girl! Sissy boys always do as they are told, and grown up sissy-boys wear lipstick. Now, obey.”

             “No!”

             “It’s pink, to match your pretty panties,” said Mrs. Sandford with a wink.

             Yesterday, I’d thought it was nightmarishly humiliating to be stripped to my Fruit of the Looms and have to put on a frilly dress. Now, that seemed almost dignified that I had to worry about matching pink lipstick and panties, and still half-naked, on top of all the chiffon and lace! 

            “I will not. It’s too feminine. I’m a boy, not a girl, even if I do have to wear a dress. I will not.” 

            They all paused and then Thelma said, “Hmm, did we say we’d only invite the boys and girls and boys from Sally’s party, who’ve already seen you in a dress? Well, scratch that. I have Mr. Harahan's number right here.” She went over to the phone.  

            Mr. Harahan was my soccer coach. I froze. 

            “How about your whole soccer team seeing you all dolled up in your chiffon and pink undies? Hmm?” 

            “That would be another nine boys for you to dance with,” said Mr. Sanford. “Lucky you!” 

            This was too horrible to believe. I could not even open my mouth. 

            “Hold still,” said Mrs. Sandford, as she started applying the lipstick to my mouth. 

            I started crying. I couldn’t help it. The tears just flooded down my cheeks as I underwent this final humiliation. 

            “Poor little sissy,” said Mr. Sandford. “She’s scared.” 

            That was the first time anyone called me “she.” I sobbed even harder. 

            Did I say the lipstick was the final humiliation? Oops, no. Because I still had to go out to a back yard party where a dozen others would see me like this. 

            Of course, when the cars showed up and the boys and girls ran into the yard, they all squealed and hooted with laughter, seeing me so ashamed and humiliated and girled-up. The boys screamed with amusement when they flipped the skirt and petticoat up, eager to show off my tightie-whities to the world—the sight of white lace-trimmed pink panties instead was the most hilarious thing they’d ever seen. 

            “I guess you’re a full-time girl now?” said Arthur. He was a nice-looking but mean bully and we had used to bully younger boys together. Now I was a sissified former bully, and he was worse than ever. 

            “Show us your panties, Preston!” yelled a girl. 

            It was a miserable afternoon, and started to feel more miserable when they all started to discuss giving me my birthday whacks. 

            “I brought a ping-pong paddle to use on you,” said Eddie. 

            “Maybe we should have birthday kisses instead of birthday whacks, now that he’s a sissy in a dress,” said one boy. 

            “Ha! If I go home with lipstick on my cheek, my parents will ask which girl kissed me! What’ll I say then?” laughed Arthur. 

            “He’ll have to bend over and we’ll lift up his dress in the back to whack him.” 

            “Icky—no! I don’t anything to do with a boy’s bottom,” said Sally, and the rest of the girls agreed. 

            “So it’s up to the men,” said Arthur. He and two other boys pulled me away. “If he was wearing pants, we’d pull them off him and throw them up in a tree, and then give him his birthday spanking. What do we do about his girlie clothes?” 

            “Well, we’ll just pull up his dress in the back instead,” said Eddie. 

            “Nope,” grinned Arthur. “Hey Preston, guess what? If you’re so embarrassed to be wearing that dress, problem solved!”  

            He pulled down the zipper in the back, and in two seconds the delicate chiffon was swishing down my legs. The fact that it was strapless made it easy. There I stood, naked except for the short flared petticoat and the pink panties. I was marched back to the others and bent over for fourteen whacks—“one for good luck.” 

            When I straightened up, everyone laughed and cheered. The pearls were rattling on my bare chest and I was all too aware of my pink lipstick and the matching panties, perfectly visible underneath the thin crinoline. Could a boy be any more humiliated? I actually wanted to put the dress back on—being in just a petticoat and lacy undies was so much worse. The dress was on the grass. 

            Then I got an idea. I grabbed the dress and ran into the house, with all the boys hooting at me for being a coward. 

            “You run like a girl!” said Arthur. “But then again if you’re wearing panties, you are a girl.” 

            “Did you see what happened out there?” I asked Thelma and the Sandfords. “We have a bully out there. Arthur made fun of me, stripped me, and he’s laughing it about it. What happens to bullies at birthday parties? There’s one more birthday present I want!” 

            After a conversation among us, Mrs. Sandford went to the door and called out very nicely, “Arthur, would you please come here?” 

            Ten minutes later, I was back outdoors, but no one was looking at me in my crinoline and panties. Every eye was on a terrified Arthur, being shoved out of the house, bare-shouldered and bare-legged, wearing the little chiffon dress over his white Hanes underpants. I have to say, he did look pretty cute, and I loved hearing him wail, “What did you do with my pants??” He was experiencing the worst panic of his life, and the fun hadn’t even started yet. 

            I finally did get the birthday present every princess wants—to see the bully get petticoated.