The next morning, Vincent and I had breakfast whilst wearing our new nighties. It felt strange with him wearing blue and me wearing pink, but I guess we were equally girlie. Mother must have told us how sweet and pretty and adorable we looked about twelve times before Vincent asked if he could go and get dressed. Mother planted her hands on his shoulders and said, “Would you like to wear your dungarees today?” Of course he did, but that had the knock-on effect of me having to wear my dungarees too. “Are you going to wear your new knickers today Andrew?” Mother asked me.
I had a feeling she wouldn’t take no for an answer, but I wasn’t going to say yes either. “Er… am I?” I replied.
“Well I think it would be nice.” she said. “Just make sure your knickers and vest match.” she added. “And save your school knickers for after school.” she advised. I left Vincent to clear the breakfast dishes and went to the the sitting room and my huge pile of Christmas gifts. Everything was there apart from my new undies, socks and tights, so after having a bit of route I returned to the kitchen. “Mother I can’t find them.” I said.
“Can’t find what?” she asked.
“My… knickers.” I hesitantly replied. For a boy it’s hard enough just saying the word ‘knickers’, let alone putting the word ‘my’ in front of it.
“I put them in your drawer so they wouldn’t get mixed up with Sonia’s.” Mother replied in an overly chirpy tone of voice.
I went to my room and my heart dropped when I opened my underwear drawer to find it half full of neatly folded knickers, vests and crop tops alongside my boys undies. Of the coloured ones, the least girlie pattern was white with blue and purple stripes, so I selected those along with a matching crop top. I couldn’t wait to get out of my pink princess nightie but wasn’t looking forward to pulling on my new girlie underwear either.
As luck would have it, Mother decided to walk in just as I was putting my crop top on. I felt myself go bright red, standing in only my knickers and little crop top, which I know is essentially a training bra. She said they looked nice and complimented my choice of colour, before telling me to fold my nightie properly (it was scrunched up on my duvet) and put it under my pillow ready for tonight. Whilst I did that, Mother got my dungarees out along with the girlie blue T-shirt she likes me to wear with them. Then she straightened the duvet on Gregory’s old bed. “Would you like Sonia to stay in your room again tonight?” she asked.
“If she wants to.” I replied.
“I think Sonia’s got an Aurora duvet cover.” she said in an uncertain tone. “I could route it out and put it on your bed, then it’d match your nightie.” she smiled.
“I don’t really want a girlie duvet too Mother… sleeping in that nightie was bad enough.” I gulped as I pulled my dungarees on.
“It can’t have been that bad.” Mother grinned. “You’d have taken it off if it was.” she said, “And you were definitely wearing it when I checked on you.”
“I still don’t want a girlie duvet though.” I moaned.
In spite of my request, that evening I found that Mother had switched my duvet cover for one of Vincent’s, and it did indeed match my nightie with its big picture of Princess Aurora decorating the ghastly pink fabric. “Is that my duvet?” Vincent asked when we went to bed. I nodded and said Mother had put it on. “Is it yours now?” he asked.
“I hope not.” I replied, fearful of actually getting under it.
Vincent slept in my room most of that week, and Vincent’s Aurora duvet cover stayed on my bed for the duration too. I feared Mother might move him and all his girlie things in permanently, but she didn’t. By New Year’s Eve, Vincent was back to his own bedroom and my room was all ‘boy’ again… well apart from the dresses in my wardrobe and the nighties, PJs & girlie underwear in my drawers… underwear in which my mother had stitched a tag bearing the word ‘Andrew’. Mother said it was so my frillies wouldn’t get mixed up with Sonia’s in the wash. I’d have preferred it if she’d labelled Vincent’s undies instead of mine, but Mother claimed that Sonia has far too many and it was simply easier to stitch a label into each item of my girlie undies.
