My Girdle Is Killing Me!

Chapter 2: The Longest Day

I was only 14 and had never in my life known real fear, but as I walked through the main door and into the school I was in a state of abject terror. People were everywhere – walking to class, standing in groups talking, late arrivals like myself rushing into the building. Everyone was too lost in their own activities to pay the slightest attention to me, but things would settle down...and then someone was bound to notice. Eyes would turn my way, whispers would start, the first giggles would turn into outright laughter. Someone would grab me and pull my trousers down to check. And I’d be standing there like a rabbit in the headlights, waiting for the first teacher to show up and drag me off to the headmaster’s office where they’d phone my parents... As my mind raced through this scenario, I must have been white with terror. For a short while – and only for a short while – it took my mind of the awful sensation of feeling this hellish thing constraining me.

The bell rang for the first classes of the day.

“See you later, Frank.”

Graham swatted me on the backside and walked away. He was in a separate stream where the not-too-bright and the couldn’t-give-a-shit cases were kept separate from the other kids so that they couldn’t slow things down or disrupt proceedings. He qualified comfortably for this stream on both counts.

My first class was English – my least favourite subject – adding that extra spice to the worst morning of my life. As I walked into the classroom, my eyes flicked from face to face, wondering who was going to be the first to spot there was something different about me. But life went on as normal. People were used to paying little or no attention to me, so it was business as usual. Pete's usual desk was in the same row as me – I only had to turn my head slightly to see him. I gasped as I sat down. I’d only been wearing this bloody thing about 20 minutes and already it was starting to drive me crazy. I glanced sideways at Pete, who smirked and turned to get on with his work.

The minutes crawled past. My initial panic had started to subside a little, though I was still on a high alert level – DEFCON 2 instead of 1. For the first time I was alone with my own thoughts. It didn’t seem real. I was wearing a girdle! I was sitting there in class with a panty girdle on under my uniform. My brain couldn’t process it. But besides the incredulity and the sheer mortification of wearing women’s underwear was the growing realisation of what an ordeal this was going to be. I wasn’t wearing panties, or a thong, or a suspender belt or anything that was merely humiliating. I was wearing a firm control girdle, and it was starting to get to me. Had they got me one that was too small, or did women really suffer like this every day?

I started to squirm in my seat. I leaned forward in my seat. I leaned backward. I stretched my legs out in front of me. I pulled them in and sat upright. I sucked my belly in to try to reduce the pressure, and the front panel came in as well to continue holding me in. The damn thing clung to me like a second skin. The thought occurred to ask to go to the toilets where I could take it off, chuck it in the bin and be free of it. But they had the photos – those fucking photos – so I had to wear it. I had to sit there, wanting to scream in frustration, but having to endure my underwear doing the job it was designed to do. It was unthinkable that I’d have to wear this torture device every day, but what were the options?

“David, pay attention...and do stop fidgeting.”

The teacher, Mr Davies, derailed my train of thought and brought me back into the moment. A few desks away, Pete sniggered. I tried to get into the work we were doing, hoping for some respite, some distraction. But try as I may, all I could think of was that stupid slogan from the TV advert – “My girdle is killing me.” I was a 14 year old boy sitting among my classmates...and my girdle was definitely killing me. And it wasn’t yet quarter past nine.

By half past ten I was in my own personal hell. When I’d stood up at the end of English class, it seemed to feel even tighter. The next class was two floors above in the science lab – four half-flights of stairs of something like a dozen steps each. If standing, walking and sitting had all added their own individual aspects to this horrible experience, walking up stairs was a whole new circle of hell. Those long legs! Why couldn’t they have got a short leg one? But of course I knew the answer to that. Humiliation on its own wasn’t enough – I had to suffer.

Walking into the chemistry class, I had my first heart-in-mouth moment of the school day.

“David, have you lost weight?”

This was Mrs McDonald, the chemistry teacher. The first adult female I’d met that day. I’d dreaded this, as an adult woman could well know the signs. Though would she be expecting to see those signs in a teenage boy? My mind raced.

“Um...yeah...I did lose a bit over the summer.”

She didn’t follow through with an interrogation, but already a horrifying thought had occurred to me. Someone had noted that I’d looked different and I’d confirmed that there was now less of me than before. If I didn’t wear my corsetry again tomorrow, I’d go back to looking like I usually did. How would I be able to explain it? So now there were two holds on me – the photos and the fact my new look had been noticed and remarked upon.

“David, are you all right?”

I must have had a thunderstruck look on my face as this realisation dawned on me. I nodded and hurried to my desk, my bottom lip starting to quiver. Up to now I’d still been clinging to the desperate hope that today would be a one-off. Pete would take pity on me. Or I’d talk him into letting me off. Or I’d agree to do something else instead – anything – to amuse them. It was fanciful stuff, but I was desperate. But now reality was sinking in – I was going to have to keep dressing like this. Tomorrow, the day after, next week, next month...next year? My vision blurred as the tears threatened to start. But the only way out was to report them and have this whole sorry farce become public knowledge. For a brief moment I thought about asking to speak to Mrs McDonald in private. I took a half-step forward...then I took a half-step back, sat down and took out my books. Christ, my girdle was killing me!

Lunchtime found me sitting sobbing in the toilets, trousers and girdle round my ankles. The relief I had felt in pulling that thing down had been indescribable, and I had every intention of spending the entire hour in there. It was the first time I’d been alone that morning. I’d been replaying in my mind what had been going on up to that point, trying to get my head around it, trying to think of a way out. I was staring upwards towards the ceiling, avoiding the sight of my new underwear. There was something about looking at it that seemed to make it worse. At least when I had it on under my trousers, agonising as it was to feel it on me, I didn’t have to see it. In the last hour or so I had been trying to pretend to myself that it was some kind of medical support or at worst a corset made for men. But seeing it brought home the horror that it was what it was – a woman’s panty girdle. I'd checked the label and they had got one the right size. How had they managed that? My heart sank to my boots as the bell rang. I stood up, gripped the waistband, closed my eyes and, grimacing with revulsion, pulled it on.

As I left the cubicle I looked at myself in the mirror, and could barely make eye-contact with my reflection as I washed my tear-stained face and tried to pull myself together. But I couldn’t resist looking for signs. I stood sideways – there was no denying my slight belly was considerably flatter. God, my backside! It was a completely smooth expanse. It was only now I first noticed what I later saw referred to as “girdle rings” – slight indentations mid-thigh where the girdle legs ended. That was another tell-tale sign to worry about.

On the way to class, I got all the answers to the questions that had filled my mind as I'd done my stiff-legged walk to school. Having had the girdle off for the best part of an hour, I was readjusting to it and was walking rather gingerly. Pete had an older sister – Sheila – who was about to turn 18 and was in her final year. I ran into her in the corridor and, on seeing me moving awkwardly and looking miserable, she glanced down at my hips before looking me straight in the eye and grinning. I think I could safely say she had been the one to get the girdle and the one to size me up in the first place.

When I got to class, I made sure my legs were well under the desk to hide my leg rings. On the way in the door I got a slight tap on my backside.

“Just checking you’re properly dressed.”

Ian grinned at me.

“Good girl.”

The first after-school meeting of the chess club was today – fate was conspiring to make sure my first day wearing corsetry was going to be a long one. I was comprehensively crushed despite playing white. I guess my mind must have been elsewhere.

“It’s not like you to play so poorly, David. I assume you didn’t play much over the summer.”

I nodded to Mr Chalmers and tried to force a weak smile. On these afternoons, as the school bus was long since gone, I had to take normal public transport. I sat with my bag in my lap – got to get into the habit of hiding those girdle-rings! – and wished the driver would for God’s sake put his foot down and get a move on. The nearer I got to sanctuary, the more excruciating it was to have to keep suffering.

After getting off the bus, I tried to run home. Running while wearing a panty girdle was an experience, so I slowed down to a brisk walk. On arriving, I rushed up the stairs to my room, threw my bag on the bed, and started fumbling at my trousers. As the old saying goes: “more haste, less speed”. I was sobbing in frustration as I frantically struggled to get my damn belt unfastened. When that battle was finally won, I sat on the bed to pull my shoes off – to hell with wasting time untying them – then dropped my trousers and kicked them across the floor. And – at long last – I grabbed the waistband of my girdle, yanked it down and stepped out of it. The relief! The sheer relief! I threw it across the room where it hit the far wall and fell down behind a bookcase, from where I would retrieve it the next day.

When I’d finally changed into what I called my “civilian clothes” I headed downstairs. I’d been wearing a girdle for over eight hours in total that day, and the sense of freedom was almost intoxicating. No constriction, no restraint, just completely unfettered movement. As the family sat round the dinner table, my mum asked me how the first day back at school had gone. I’d have loved to have seen the look on her face if I’d told her.