She left us alone and Peter spent a few minutes finishing off his homework, before slipping the disc into his laptop. I told him that images are in two folders, one for Saturday and one for Sunday. “I’m doing Sunday so you do Saturday.” I told him, before asking if he knew how to do a batch process to reduce all the image sizes at once. He didn’t, so I showed him. “It’ll take five or ten minutes.” I said.
“I’ll go and change.” Peter said, referring to his school uniform.
“You can change into one of mine if you want.” I grinned.
“Tempting… but I’ll pass.” Peter sarcastically replied. He returned just as the batch process had completed.
“You’re wearing my hoodie.” I noticed.
“Yeah.” he bashfully replied. “So, what am I doing?” he asked as he sat.
“I’m doing the skirts and frocks, you’re doing pants and tops…” I said. “…so I need a crop of each item, and don’t forget to crop your head off.” I explained.
“And saving as a JPEG?” he asked.
“Yes please.”
“What about the image names?” he asked. “And where should I save them?”
“Errr, save ’em onto your hard-drive and retain the original P0101 whatever names. I’ve stored the clothes in the order I took the pictures so…”
“OK.” he replied.
“I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this Peter… it’d take me all week on my own.”
“It would have been quicker to just photograph them on clothes hangers.” he reckoned.
“I know but they supposedly sell better if they’re modelled.” I replied. “Plus it was much more fun putting them on you then it would have been if I’d put them on hangers.” I added. “Would you do it again?” I asked.
“You mean… next time you have a clearout?” he queried.
“Or next time you don’t feel like wearing boy’s clothes.” I suggested. “You did say you liked how we can completely change the way we look…”
“I didn’t say I liked it.” he claimed.
“You at least found it interesting though.” I replied. “…and you did feel elegant in this.” I added, twisting my laptop so he could see the image on the screen.
“It’s hard to believe that’s me.” he said.
“I know… you look so pretty.”
“Only because you did my make-up.”
“You looked nice when you did your own.” I said as I opened the image folder and showed him one of those pictures, zooming right into his face.
“Yours looks better.”
“Yeah but yours still looks good.” I replied. “Plus, I’ve had years of practice, that’s your first attempt.”
“Maybe… it’s not that good though.”
“It’s fine… and imagine what you could do with some practice.”
“I think you’re forgetting I’m your brother.” Peter dryly retorted.
“I’m not.” I grinned. “But we both know you’ve loved every minute being my sister.”
“Not every minute… some of those dresses were awful.”
“Yeah and others you really liked… the dungee-dress, the frayed denim skirt and you’ll probably deny it, but the tea-dress too.” I claimed.
He began to deny it but stopped himself. “Yeah they were OK…” he admitted. “…but the tea-dress definitely felt better than it looked.”
“How it feels is all that matters when you’re wearing it.” I said. “How it looks is for others to decide.” I added as I found the image on my laptop. “Imagine that’s not you…” I suggested, tapping the screen in the vicinity of his head. “…do you think that dress looks nice on her?”
Peter slumped and sighed and stared at the screen. “Well… yeah I guess.”
“Which means it looks nice on you.” I informed him. “It looked nice on me too when I could fit into it.” I said.
“You could by a new one when you sell it.” he suggested.
I wanted to tell him that I didn’t want to sell it, but wanted him to have it instead. “True.” is what I did say. I’ve been getting so engrossed about my brother wearing my old clothes that I’d forgotten all about my potential new clothes. “I new tea dress would be nice.” I added as I imagined us both wearing tea-dresses.
We continued editing the images in relative silence for a while. “How come you’ve got so many pairs of shorts that all look the same?” he asked.
“Because they don’t all fit the same.” I replied as I looked at his screen which showed seven or ten thumbnails of him wearing various pairs of blue denim shorts. I pointed out that some hug his hips and thighs and some don’t. That some are a little shorter than others, or have a frayed hem whilst others are turned up. There’s various arrangements of pockets, different shades of blue, high waists, hipsters and so on. “Little things make a big difference in how they look and feel.” I informed him. “Those suit you, those ones don’t.” I said, pointing out two of the images.
“They look better with black tights than those nude things.” he replied.
I agreed and told him that little denim shorts like those look great with leggings too. “We never tried that combo did we?”
“No but I can imagine.” he gulped.
“Wanna try it?”
“Can we just get on with this?” he asked in an impatient tone.
“OK.” I moaned as I set my eyes on my laptop screen. Peter’s were focused on his. “But I’m going to keep pestering you to try something else until you give in.”
“I know.” he groaned.
I grinned to myself. It was a triumphant grin. I know he wants to dress up again but he just can’t admit it. He knows it too and he’s pretty much admitted that he will give in. We tapped away, editing the images for a while before I thought of something. “You know what I didn’t get round to sorting through?”
“What?”
“My nighties and jim-jams.” I replied. “I must have about twenty altogether and a good half of them I never wear.”
“Oh.” he groaned.
I said nothing more. We continued working through the images until we’d had enough. There’s plenty more to do but we’ll continue tomorrow evening. It wasn’t just a ploy… I really had forgotten about my nightwear. Sorting it into two piles, one to keep and one to sell took a matter of minutes and I wondered if pestering my brother to model them would be a bit mean of me. It would be easier to photograph them on clothes hangers but… I dunno. I decide to do the decent thing and ask, so tap quietly on his bedroom door. There’s no answer which means he’s still downstairs. I consider going down but instead I return to my room and grab the bundle if nightwear, before quietly entering my brother’s room and laying it neatly on his duvet, before creeping back to my room. Three pairs of nice pyjamas, four nighties and a few cami/shorts sets await him. Will he wear something or just put them to one side? I wonder. No one need know if he did.