Memoir. A quiet teenage boy struggles to cope when school bullying takes a sadistic turn. |
Two years had now passed. It didn't seem possible. I was now 16 and I'd been wearing a girdle for two whole years. And I was starting to get accustomed to the feel of it on me – it was inevitable after such a long time. I still disliked the sensation, but I could endure it so much better these days. I'd had a growing fear that, as the months had rolled by, Pete would have exposed me anyway to liven things up. But I guess he assumed my pain was as raw as ever. While I'd promised myself I'd never break down in front of them again, I saw no harm in showing a little bit of explicit discomfort for their benefit – the odd wince and grimace, sighing with my hands on my hips – a little bit of theatre to convince them nothing had changed. As long as they thought I was suffering, the photos would remain out of sight. Getting dressed was less of a drama as well – no more quivering lips or dressing with my eyes closed. I'd take my girdle out, pull it on with no fuss and complete getting dressed. I was still ashamed, still disliked the restrictive feel, would have stopped in an instant if it had been an option – but it wasn’t, and I'd got inured to living this way. So life went on uneventfully... ...until that first Sunday in October, when I'd gone into my room and found Donna, my 14 year old sister, sitting on my bed, smiling demurely at me...and holding up my panty girdle. My stomach lurched and my head swam – I came within a whisker of fainting. “Hi Dave – look at what I found. Whatever can it be doing in your room?” I slumped onto the bed, my mind a complete blank. What the hell was I supposed to say to her? “Well?” “Where did you get that?” “It was lying on the floor under your bookcase.” There was no point in trying to make up some half-baked story, so I took a deep breath and told her. She started to smirk. “Really? You're being 'forced'? You're sure you don't just like wearing it?” “You can ask them yourself tomorrow.” She threw it into my lap. “Cool. Let's see you in it then.” “You've got to be fucking kidding.” “OK. Then I'll tell mum.” She got up and started towards the door. I kicked it shut before she could get there, stood up, kicked off my trainers, dropped my jeans, stepped into it and pulled it on. Her jaw dropped as she gawped at the sight of her big brother in a long leg panty girdle. “Oh...my...God!” She stepped forward and ran her hands over it. Then she looked me right in the eye. “No kidding...you're really being forced?” I nodded. “How long?” “Just over two years.” “TWO YEARS?” “For Christ's sake keep it down!” As I hauled it off and dressed again, she collapsed on the bed howling with laughter. It was several minutes before she regained her composure. “You've been wearing a girdle for two years?” I nodded. “And you don't like it?” “I fucking hate it – but they've got photos of me in it so I'm screwed.” Her eyes glittered with pleasure. While she'd have loved it if I'd been doing it willingly, when she could have exposed me or held it over my head, the idea that I was being forced delighted her. The little bitch. “I will ask them, you know.” “I insist on it. But keep it to yourself.” “I won't breathe a word. But I want to see you dress for school tomorrow, though.” Bitch. The following morning, after I'd put on everything bar my girdle and trousers, I crept to her door and knocked. She let me in and stood, smirking as I pulled on my girdle and finished dressing. “Satisfied?” She looked me straight in the eye and I had to look away in embarrassment. As we sat at the breakfast table, she put her hand on my thigh, found the cuff at the end of my girdle leg, raised it and let it spring back with an audible snap. “What was that?” my mum asked, turning round to hand us some toast. “I didn't hear anything...did you Dave?” She smiled innocently at me as I shook my head. Bitch. As soon as we got off the school bus, she dragged me over to Pete. He looked at me and raised his eyebrows. “She knows.” He came over and Donna stared open-mouthed as he tapped me on the backside. “Might as well check. Yep, good and tight. Good girl.” He turned to her. “She's never missed a day, your big sister. Wouldn't be seen dead at school without her girdle on. A girl's not properly dressed without one.” It was only now that she truly believed what I had told her the day before. Her eyes shone triumphantly as she realised the hold she now had over me. “Well he...I mean she...definitely needed one.” Her eyes focussed on my slight boy boobs. “Don't you think she could use a bra as well?” What did the little cow thing she was doing? My mouth went dry with fear at what might happen next. “We thought about it, but it might be a bit too obvious – people would notice.” Thank Christ for that. She slapped me on the backside. “Pity. Anyway, see you later...sis...I've got to run.” Pete grinned at me. “I like her.” Then he headed off to his first class. With Graham having left school at the earliest opportunity the previous summer, and with Iain having bailed out early on in the whole affair, my gang of tormentors had been reduced to two. But, now my beloved little sister had effectively joined the merry band. When I saw her in the corridor between classes, her eyes would drop to my waist, then back up to make eye contact, an insolent smirk on her face. On the bus back home, she leaned over and whispered “is your girdle killing you?” Back home, she came into my room and, as I pulled my girdle down, gave an exaggerated sigh of relief: “Phew!!!” I shoved her out of the room and slammed the door behind her, listening to her laughter as she went to her own room. The vicious little brat loved this new state of affairs. From that day on, I could hardly bear to look at her any time I had my uniform on, knowing that she knew what I had on under it. Occasionally she’d insist on watching me get dressed again. Her eyes would sparkle with delight as I tugged on my girdle. Any time I had my school uniform on, especially at home in front of our oblivious parents, she’d love to make eye contact and give me that sly smile to rub it in that she knew what I had on and knew that I was hating every second. She’d pat my taut backside when no-one was looking, twang my girdle leg, and whisper no end of comments based on slogans from the TV ads: “Is your girdle killing you?”, “Can you believe it’s a girdle?”, “Do you need extra panelling here and here?” (while patting my backside and stomach). Her favourite was based on a series of Playtex ads (even though the thing I was having to endure wearing was a Berlei) - “Your girdle! You’ve forgotten your 18-hour girdle!”, and then, after running her hands up and down my hips, “Oh! You have it on! And of course there was no way she was going to tell our parents, as that would have brought things to an end. By keeping quiet, she could enjoy watching me suffer and amuse herself by putting the boot in at every opportunity. The bullying had followed me from school into the house. There was now no escaping it. Ian left school the following summer, leaving Pete to man the fort as the last remaining member of the girdle police. But he performed his duties scrupulously and checked on me every day, even though we both knew by that time that I would never have the nerve to leave the house “improperly dressed”. He knew I had got used to it as the years had passed and was no longer suffering the discomfort I once had, but he kept up the checks anyway – alpha-male bullshit, just to reinforce the message ‘I’m making you wear women’s underwear and there’s nothing you can do about it’. And I had got used to it. By the time my sister had found out, I was already pretty much adapted to the physical sensation. It was in and around the third year mark that I actually shocked myself about how habituated I'd become to my situation. My daily routine on getting home from school was to go to my room to change out of my uniform, take my girdle off and hide it in its usual place. But this day I had evening plans – a few friends and I were going to go out cycling and I was running late. So I rushed into my room, changed, ducked into the kitchen to grab a sandwich, and then headed out to meet with the others. We were late getting home as well – it was nearly 10 as I came through the door and headed upstairs for a shower (with words of reproach from my mum ringing in my ears) before going to bed. I unfastened my belt, opened my jeans...and I still had my girdle on. And not once – not once – in the entire evening had it registered that I’d forgotten to take it off. When I’d first started all those years back, walking up a flight of stairs was an ordeal. Now I was out cycling – cycling of all things! – and it never crossed my mind that I still had on my panty girdle. I had so many mixed emotions at that moment. It represented the point where I could say I was 100% used to wearing a girdle and it was no big deal anymore. For that I felt a sense of relief. But deep inside there was profound sadness and a sense of shame that I, a 17 year old young man, had been so broken by bullying that I could now go a full day in an item of women’s corsetry and not think anything of it. Getting used to it did also result in moments of carelessness. One lunchtime I’d gone into town for reasons I can’t recall. My girdle legs had ridden up, so I stepped down a side street and, with both hands, pinched the leg through my trousers, pulled it down and let it go with an audible snap before repeating the process on the other leg. I finished my adjustments by muttering “fucking girdle” in a voice loud enough to be audible a few feet away. Which it was. I looked up to see these two older women whom I hadn’t noticed in my rush to make adjustments staring at me open-mouthed. Thank God I didn’t know either of them. I was a bit more careful after that. In my final year at school, I was accepted for a university place down in England. Pete was also going to university but staying in Scotland, so at least there would be some distance between us. I occasionally saw the other two kicking around town, but I made sure to give them a wide berth. The nagging fear I had as I approached the end of my school days was the end game. Those photos from all those years back had been hanging over my head like the sword of Damocles, and I dreaded the final act being my exposure – a last act of vindictiveness before I escaped their clutches. I was uncertain what to do. Bringing the subject up would show my nervousness about it, and may well be the trigger for them to disseminate the pictures far and wide. So I had to suffer in silence, getting ever more nervous as the summer arrived. But, to my great relief – and complete bafflement – that final humiliation never happened. It would be a long time before I found out why. I left school at the age of 18. I'd started wearing a panty girdle at 14 and, four years later, I had never had a single day at school without my girdle on under my uniform. I’d had a growth spurt when I was around 13/14 and, while I'd grown since then, it was not by a huge amount. So my girdle still fitted me, though with four years of regular wear it had lost a bit of its ’zing’. If I’d known right at the start that I'd be wearing a girdle for so long, I don’t know what I’d have done. But I was free at last. In the first week of the break, I took a long cycle ride on my own up into the hills and into a quiet wood. I had my girdle in my rucksack, along with some matches and a small bottle of white spirit. I dropped it on the ground, splashed some of the liquid over it and dropped a lit match on it. As I watched it burn, I felt a huge weight lift off my shoulders. September would see me moving far away – not only from my home town, but out of Scotland altogether and down into England. Pete was staying in Scotland, and the others were going to...actually I didn’t know and I didn’t care. I’d be free of them and free of this bloody nightmare once and for all. I’d be able to put it behind me, see a whole new world, make new friends, set forth on a new life and move on. |