Janet Tompkins was one of the finest behaved kids that you could ever hope to find anywhere; she was courteous, kind hearted, and very obedient. You could say that she was a model child. She was just going on fifteen when her life began.
On the other hand, for James Tompkins, Judy’s other self, during his whole life, there was only one thing that bothered him: No matter how hard he tried, there was just nothing he could do right for his widowed mother. He understood that she had gone through some very hard times after his father died, and that for some reason, she was taking it out on him, for something he had no part in the making. Her methods of punishment were something that were hard for James to understand or deal with, for whatever offense he was accused of doing or not doing, his mother would always punish him by making him dress up completely as a little girl, with the taffeta dresses, stiff petticoats, white stockings, and patent leather little-girl style shoes. Then he would have to spend that time playing little girl games, or play with girls’ toys. It was his mother’s way of taking her revenge out on the men of the world, and showing how she felt about them. She was trying to destroy James’s chance of ever becoming a man by feminizing him as much as possible, and treating him much better when he was dressed up like a girl than as a boy.
James was only three when his father died, and from that time on, Mrs. Tompkins kept him dressed up as a girl all the time. When he became seven, and it was time for him to attend school, she had to send him as a boy, but when he got home, the pants and shirt would come off and he would be put into pretty frilly dresses and made to play with his dolls. He was never allowed to play with the other kids from the neighborhood, or from school. So, for the most part, James really didn’t know any better, and enjoyed being with his mother.
As James approached the age of ten or eleven, he began to question his mother about having to dress up as a girl. She would tell him that since he was such a bad boy all the time, it was her way of punishing him, without hitting him. But a few months after that his mother was almost forced to forget her idea of keeping him in dresses. His friends were starting to show up around the house, and James said he was going to tell the teacher at school what he had to do every time he got home. This made her a little nervous. So she let him become a boy, doing things with other boys. Every once in a while, Mrs. Tompkins would catch him doing something, no matter how minor it might have been, and she would dress him up in a dress and make him stay in the house for that day. She got away with this at least twice a week for the next four or five years.
James was getting bigger, and learning more about what real life was about, and her chances to dress him up got fewer and fewer, until one day just after he turned fifteen, he stole something from a candy store and got caught. This was now Mrs. Tompkins’s chance to really get him good. It had been several months since she had given him petticoat punishment, and the clothes she used then were now just too small. On the way to the store to pick her son up, she stopped at a girl’s dress shop and bought several dresses; then she went to several other stores to buy underwear, stockings, shoes, and everything she was going to need to start her plan in motion. Then she went to the store to pick him up. Once in the store, she apologized to the owner, and paid for what he got caught taking, and promised that he would never ever steal anything again. Then she took James by the scruff of the neck, and dragged him to her waiting car, opened the door and pushed him inside.
As they drove the short distance to the house, James saw the bags of things in the back seat and knew the labels all too well. His mother was telling him that this was the last straw, he was really going to pay for this stunt. He was going to be put back into dresses, and she didn’t care who he told about it. In fact, she was going to call the school herself, and explain what had just happened, and make the proper arrangements, and get permission from the principal to register and send him to school as a girl for the rest of the school year, and maybe longer if necessary.
James didn’t really think that she would go that far, but as soon as they got into the house, she sent James to his room, then picked up the phone and talked to the principal, explaining all the trouble she had been having with James, and how she wanted to punish him with petticoat training, and end the problems she was having with her son by sending him to school in dresses to shame him in to doing the right thing–before it was too late to help him.
The principal told her that since the problem was so severe that arrangements would be made, and he was sure that starting tomorrow he would be able to attend school registered as a girl. Mrs. Tompkins called James out of his room and told him what arrangements had been made. James was horrified when his mother told him what was going to happen to him. He had only been shoplifting the things to get in with the guys, and he explained just how wrong and how sorry he was for doing it.
Mrs. Tompkins wasn’t even listening to his pleas. She just gathered up her packages and bags and led James to his room. She got a clothes basket and emptied his drawers, closet, and laundry bag of all his boy’s clothes. Then she opened up the bags and boxes and took out some of the frilliest and most feminine clothes James had ever seen and put them away into his drawers and hung the dresses up in his closet.
When she was finished putting his pretty new frilly wardrobe away, she turned to him and ordered him to strip completely naked. James turned to run for the door, but Mrs. Tompkins grabbed him by the arm, and flung him across the room. James landed with a heavy thud against the far wall. Mrs. Tompkins was still a very strong woman and James knew that she could really hurt him if she wanted to.
