I thought about the question for a moment before replying.

“I really don’t know.” I said.

My brother looked me up and down and smiled.
“Because it’s fun.” he told me as he jumped off the dresser and twirled around in his pink satin pyjamas, grinning from ear to ear.
“Boy’s clothes are just so…” he said, forging a frown, “…boring.” he smiled.
“But Girl’s clothes…”

Meanwhile, their mother is travelling interstate and wondering how James and John are getting on.
It’s been three years since their father passed away and ever since that fateful day, she’s been more afraid of losing her two sons than anything.
She feared that one day they’d meet a young lady and marry and as the old saying goes;
a son is a son ’til he finds a wife but a daughter’s a daughter for life.
It’s been eight months since her eldest son James was introduced to the pleasures of femininity, although for him it wasn’t very pleasurable to begin with.
At the age of sixteen, she sent James to a finishing school in New Hampshire
where he lives as a boarder and learns to be a lady,
but as far as he knew at the time, and as far as his younger brother John is currently aware,
it’s supposed to be a normal boarding school, albeit a very expensive one.
James was dropped in at the deep end;
stripped of his masculinity,
corseted and feminised… and he’s come a long way.
For John, however, he’s going to receive the softly softly approach and all being well, by the time he enrols at the same finishing school he’ll be a far more willing student from the outset.

James and John spent the whole weekend playing dress up.
James teaches John how to apply make-up,
with the expected results for a beginner and ends up doing it for him.
John finds the whole experience thrilling but can’t really fathom why his mother encouraged his brother.
The only answer he’s received as to ‘why’ is because it’s fun.
“So… when Mother returns, shall we be dressed as girls or boys?” John asks as he rolls a silk stocking up his hairless leg.

“What do you think?” James replied.

“I don’t know?” John replied as he fastened the suspender clip.
“That’s why I’m asking,” he said.
He sighed and added,
“For all I know you could be teasing me and Mother’s got nothing to do with it.”