The next batch of images are from Saturday and showed him wearing shorts with tights, leggings with shorts, skinny T shirts, vest tops, blouses, jumpers, jeans, trousers and pedal pushers. Knowing that we’re viewing them photographs in reverse order, Mum noticed that I’d eased him in slowly rather than putting him straight into my skirts and dresses.
Peter returned from the bathroom and realising that we’re looking at all the pictures of him modelling my clothes, he once again sought assurance that they wouldn’t be shown to anyone else. We assured him we wouldn’t, but Mum managed to put the fear of god into him when she said she’d like prints of some of them. “Especially the pale green tea dress.” she added. “It’d be nice on top of the telly.”
“Please don’t Mum.” he nervously begged.
“I’m only joking.” she grinned. Peter looked positively relieved. “So… apart from the trauma of wearing girl’s clothes and make-up, have you enjoyed playing dress-up this weekend?” Mum asked.
“I’ve endured it.” Peter dryly retorted.
Mum and I grinned. I suggested that the experience wasn’t ‘that’ bad and reminded him that he applied his own make-up a couple of times and did an admirable job for a beginner. I also reminded him that he quickly became adept tottering about in high heeled shoes, and that he ‘quite liked’ some of my skirts, tops and frocks such as the pale blue dungee-dress, the distressed denim skirts, etc.
“Only because they were better than the rest.” Peter claimed. “I wouldn’t ‘choose’ to wear them.”
As we chatted, Mum continued skipping back through the photographs. “You could certainly get away with wearing some of Emma’s old jeans.” she said. “You also suit some of her tops and T-shirts too.” she added.
“Some of ’em were OK I guess… the plain ones.” Peter replied. “But they’re still girl’s clothes.”
“No one would notice.” Mum claimed.
“I am supposed to be selling them remember.” I reminded my mother. “Giving them to Peter doesn’t exactly help my wardrobe fund.”
“Yeah.” Peter agreed. “Anyway can we talk about something else… I’ve spent all weekend dressing as a girl so I’d rather not spend all week talking about it.”
“Fair enough.” I said. “Are you still up for helping me crop and edit the photos?” I asked.
“Yeah I guess.” he replied. “How long do you think that’ll take?”
“I dunno… half the time if there’s two of us doing it.”
Mum handed my camera back to me and we watched TV for a while. Being a school night for my brother, he took himself up to bed at around nine-thirty. I wasn’t far behind since I’m at college. I booted up my laptop and connected my camera to transfer the hundreds of photographs onto its hard-drive. I should have borrowed Peter’s USB stick and transferred half to that for him to edit, but figured it’d be just as easy to put them on a CD-R.
By the time I woke on Monday morning, all the pictures had transferred. I selected all to burn to disc and set that going before heading down for breakfast. Peter’s perched at the breakfast bar, chomping on a bowl of cereal. He’s wearing his school uniform and I smile to myself, recalling the previous day when he sat there wearing my school uniform. He told me he’d used the deep-cleansing lotion on his face again but is worried that it’s still obvious that he’d been wearing make-up. Whilst there is a vague trace of the pale pink pigment trapped deep within his pores and an echo of his eye-liner, I assured him that no one would notice. “…we can only see it because we know… everyone else is non the wiser.” I told him.
Later in the afternoon when I returned from college, Peter was sat in the dining room doing his homework. I asked if he’d had a good day at school before asking if anyone had noticed that he’d been wearing make-up. “No.” he replied, adding that he’d spent the whole day worrying about nothing. I asked if he had a lot of homework to do. “Not much.” he replied, telling me he’d be finished in half and hour or so.
“Cool.” I replied. I took myself to my room to find the burnt CD-R ejected from my laptop. I closed the tray and checked that it had transferred the images properly, then double checked my hard-drive to make sure I’d copied rather than moved them. I took my laptop down to the dining room and asked Peter if he minded me joining him. I sat and ejected the CD tray. “Here… a present for you.” I said, handing him the disc.
“What’s that?” he asked.
“About two-hundred and fifty pictures of you wearing nice clothes for a change.” I grinned. “I’ll get going on Sunday’s pictures and you can do Saturday’s.”
“I’ve got my homework to finish first.”
“I know… just letting you know so we don’t edit the same ones.”
I batch processed Sunday’s images, reducing them from their vast original size to a more manageable 1280×960 pixels, then each would need the head cropping off, and splitting to show just the top or skirt where necessary. We tapped away in relative silence for a while, until Peter said “I was looking at that school you and mum mentioned last night.”
“What school?”
“Ashford Academy… where the boys and girls all dress the same.”
“Oh that school!” I exclaimed. “Why?” I asked.
“Because I didn’t believe you.” he replied.
“And?”
“They’ve got a website.”
“Show me?” I asked as I got up and took the seat beside him. He typed ‘Ashford Academy, Kent’ into the search box and tapped ‘go’. The first result is the official .edu website. Beneath this is a number of news websites and headlines such as ‘controversial school storms local league tables’ and ‘new uniform rule triggers wave of transfers from Kent high school’. Peter clicked on the official website and from the home page, clicked on the ‘uniforms’ tab. I chuckled at the image of two pupils; a boy and a girl wearing almost identical uniforms. “He’s wearing ballet shoes.” I said.
“Is that a skirt or those clot things?” Peter asked.
“Culottes.” I corrected, before reading the description. “It says they are but they look very similar to the girl’s skirt.”
“It also says that boys can wear either culottes or a skirt.” Peter added.
“Which would you wear?” I asked.
“Culottes I guess… I’d rather wear shorts than a skirt.”
“Click on the gallery.” I suggested. Peter did and we browsed through the various images; kids in class, kids at play, kids cooking, doing science, reading, debating, receiving awards and so on. “It’s hard to tell which are the boys and which are the girls.” I said. Peter claimed that the boys have short hair and girls have long hair. I listed a couple of short haired girls we both know, before drawing his attention to a pupil with bunches and said “He’s definitely a boy.”
“No way.” Peter claimed before having a closer look. “Maybe.”
“Definitely.” I insisted.
“I hope you’re studying and not just surfing.” Mum said, popping her head around the dining room door. Peter told her that he’d pretty much finished his homework, before asking her opinion as to whether the pupil in question was a boy or a girl.
“What’s this?” Mum asked. We told her and she took a closer look at the enlarged image. “Boy.” she claimed, before asking why we’re looking at that particular website. “You’re not hoping to transfer are you?” she asked.
“No way!” Peter replied.
“Good, the bus fare to Kent would be extortionate.” Mum grinned. “Why are you looking at that school?” she asked again.
“Because I didn’t believe you so I did a search and found it… I was just showing Emma.” Peter replied. “Must be horrible having to go there.” he muttered.
“It wouldn’t be that bad… you’ve just spent two days wearing girl’s clothes and that wasn’t horrible.” I said.
“But that didn’t involve walking to and from school and all my mates seeing me.”
“If you went there all your mates would be wearing the uniform too… it’d be strange at first but I expect they get used to it soon enough.” I replied.
“Maybe.” Peter frowned.
“What’s this?” Mum asked, noticing a CD-R on the table with Peter’s Photos written on it. I told her and she asked if she could borrow it. I told her that Peter needs it to help me edit all the images I’ll be using to sell my old clothes on FleaBay. “Well, when you’ve done that, can I borrow it?” Mum asked.
“I guess.” Peter reluctantly replied. “…just…”
“I know.” Mum chirped. “I won’t show anyone.”
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.
