Sissy Shopping Nightmare - Part 4 of 4

 

Sissy Shopping Nightmare

By Karen Singer

 

Part 4 of 4

 

Right on cue, his cat purse gave a ding and he had to stop, put down his package of diapers, and dig the phone out.  Yup!  Message:  You’re looking sooo pretty now.  Those earrings really suit you.  But you’re not done yet.  On the lower level, there’s a store that sells all kinds of things for young girls.  Find this hairbow, buy it, and put it firmly in your hair so that it won’t fall out.  The picture showed a large girl’s hairbow.  Pink…of course.

 

 

He couldn’t believe it.  Couldn’t he just die right here and now?  No!  If he died, then they would kill Jimmy.  He had no doubt in the world about that.  Resigned, he put his phone away, picked up his bag of diapers, and trudged his way through the mall to find the little girl’s store.

Ribbons and bows and necklaces and bracelets and…so many different things.  All of it things that would bring delight to any and every girl on the planet.  Not to him though.  But then he wasn’t a girl.  Especially not a little girl.  Despite how he was dressed.

He had to look around to find the bow.  As he did, the store owner watched him carefully.  And yes, when he walked into the store, she outright laughed at him.  But after that, since he appeared to be looking, she left him alone.

There it was.  He checked the picture.  An exact match.  The darn thing was a bit bigger than he thought it would be.  So be it.  It made no difference, especially in light of everything else he was wearing.  Two minutes later, he had paid for it.  One minute later, he was standing just outside the door, trying to fasten the stupid thing into his hair.

“Can I help you?”

“What?” Bruce gasped, looking around.  The store owner had come out and was standing behind him.

“Can I help you?” she asked again.  There was no doubting the amusement in her eyes.

He was about to tell her no, tell her to go away, but he had already been through enough.  Too much!  “Sure,” he told her.  “I’m supposed to put this in my hair so that it won’t fall out.”

She took it from him.  “Turn around,” she told him.  He did and he felt her doing something with his hair.  He couldn’t really tell what she was doing, but she was doing a lot of pulling.

“Is this for some kind of bet?” she asked.

“No,” he replied.  “More like ransom.”

“Ransom?” she asked.

He remembered then that he wasn’t supposed to tell anyone about his son being kidnapped.  And he knew for a fact that they were definitely watching him closely.  Too closely.  In fact, maybe she was one of the watchers.  “Um…never mind.  Maybe I just want to do this.”

“That was another guess,” she told him as she finished.  “There.  All done.  You’re real pretty now.”

“Ha-ha,” he said as he walked away.  He turned back towards her though and said, “Thanks.  I appreciate it.”  Then he turned and kept walking.  He soon realized that with every slight movement of his head, he could feel the trailing ends of the bow moving against his neck.  It was without a doubt, an absolutely maddening feeling.

His phone dinged, but instead of another message, it was another picture.  This time of the back of his head, complete with the large pink hairbow.  Yeah, they were still watching him closely.  He didn’t even bother trying to look around to see who it might be.  Someone was there.  In fact, they were everywhere.  Everywhere and everyone in the entire huge mall.  Or was it the world?

It was longer this time before another message came through to his phone.  Once again he set his bag of diapers down so he could dig the phone from his little girl cat purse.  The message was different:  I can tell you’re getting tired.  You’re almost done with your shopping.  At least as far as what I want you to buy.  When you’re done, you’ll still have to stay there and shop.  Just two more things I want you to buy to complete your pretty new outfit for the new and improved you.  Both of these things are in different jewelry stores.  Find them, buy them, wear them.  The pictures were of a necklace with a shiny pink stone, similar to the ones in his earrings.  The other picture was of a bracelet containing the same pink stones.  Jewelry stores again.  How expensive were they going to be?

 

  

 

There were three or four jewelry stores in the mall.  He walked slowly along the concourse, feeling stupid and totally humiliated while everyone in the world seemed to be noticing him and the way he was dressed.  Was there a cure for his problem?  Yes, a gunshot to his head.  That’s what he would like to do.  But if he did that, it would leave Jimmy alone in the world with no parents at all.

His mind went to thoughts of his dead wife.  Actually, knowing her, she’d probably be laughing her head off at him right now.  Yeah, she would, even though nothing about his situation was funny in the least.  Especially because of what they had done to Jimmy, and what they still might do to him.  Maybe do to them both.

It would actually make more sense if they killed both him and Jimmy.  He prayed they wouldn’t.  He had done everything they had asked of him today.  Everything!  Especially after sending that video of them breaking Jimmy’s finger.  That had been too much.  Too horrible.  Just the thought of it made him sick.  If Jimmy’s finger was forever disfigured or the least bit of trouble at all, he had only himself to blame.  He had no doubt that Jimmy would blame him too.

A jewelry store.  Hip, hip hooray.  Even though he felt no sense of happiness at all.  He went in and looked all around, but didn’t see the necklace or the bracelet.  Of course not.  It couldn’t be that easy.  More than likely they would be in stores as far from him as they could get, just so he’d have to parade himself past as many people as possible.

It was twenty minutes before he found the necklace.  He paid for it, then right there in the store, he tried to put it on.  The woman who had helped him took the necklace from him and fastened it around his neck for him.  She couldn’t seem to stop giggling the entire time she did it.  He didn’t blame her, even though it wasn’t funny in the least.  “Thanks,” he told her gratefully.  When she suggested he look in the mirror so he could see the necklace on him, he had declined.  “No thanks,” he said.  He knew it would be bad.  It might actually look nice, but no matter what, in this situation it would still be bad.  He still had to find a bracelet.

The bracelet was in the next jewelry store he came to.  Once again, after buying it, he struggled to fasten the damn thing around his wrist, and the saleswoman helped him.  He didn’t need a mirror to see the bracelet.  It just flopped around on his wrist, moving every time he moved his hand.

He walked back out into the mall concourse.  According to the last message, he was done.  No more messages, no more shopping.  No more buying humiliating things to add to all the humiliating things he was already wearing.  He was done.  Except he wasn’t.  They wouldn’t be picking him up until nine thirty tonight.  He still had hours to spend walking around the mall feeling humiliated.

He was actually surprised when his phone dinged again.  He put down the bag of diapers and dug the phone out of his cat purse.  No picture this time, just words:  Go back to the food court and get yourself something to eat and a large drink.  Sit at one of the tables.  Finish everything.

It was maybe one of the easiest things they had asked him to do.  He hadn’t eaten anything all day, but the way he felt, he doubted he could eat.  Still, he didn’t want to take any chance at all that they might hurt Jimmy more than they already had.  Resigned, he wandered his way back to the food court.  He stood in line and grabbed a single slice of pizza and a large drink.  He managed to carry it all to a table where he sat down.

He looked at the drink in the huge cup.  No doubt they wanted him to wet the stupid diaper he was wearing again.  How bad would the thing be then?  It had been a misery all day.  He had a feeling it was soon going to be even worse.

He took two bites of the pizza when he heard a sound from the phone inside his cat purse.  A different sound.  He dug the phone out and realized that instead of a message, someone was actually calling to talk.  “Hello?”

“Oohh.  Don’t you look sooo pretty now,” a woman’s voice crooned teasingly.  “Did you enjoy yourself all day?  Do you love the outfit we picked out for you?  We went to a lot of trouble to put it all together for you.”

“No.”

The woman laughed.  “Too bad!” she said sternly.  “That was the point.  Maybe now you’ve had just a little taste of what your son did to someone else.”

“What?” Bruce begged.  “Who?”

“Your son Jimmy and his friends beat up the son of the woman who hired us.  They beat him badly, then they stripped him naked, put a diaper on him, put a dress on him, and paraded him all around the school, before beating him again so badly that he wound up in psychiatric care, where he’s still traumatized.”

“My Jimmy did that?”

“Yes, you moron!  Your Jimmy!  And we punished you too because as his father, you should have raised him better, so he’d know better than to do anything like that.  So it’s not just his fault, but yours as well.”

“I…I didn’t know,” Bruce admitted.  “I had no idea.”

“Of course not, because you’re a bad parent!  Actually, you’re lucky.  The boy’s mother wanted us to kill your son and you too.  But instead, she hired us to punish you both.  Since you behaved, you both will live, but we doubt you’ll ever forget this.”

“Who was the boy?” Bruce asked.  “Who was the mother.  I want to apologize.”

“No!  You’ll never know.  There can never be the slightest chance that we can be traced.  We made sure of it.  We just decided that after what your son did to the other boy, this was the best punishment for you both.  He got beaten to within an inch of his life, and you got the humiliation that he experienced when they paraded him past all his classmates in the school.”

“But…I never knew,” Bruce told her.  “I had no idea!”

“Because you’re a bad parent!” she told him.  “Nine thirty!” she said.  “Stay in that mall and shop and accept your punishment until nine thirty.  Then the van will be back to pick you up.”

“And you’ll take me to Jimmy?  And then home?”

He got no answer.  The line was dead.

Jimmy…his son…had beat up another kid, and humiliated him badly?  It just didn’t sound like something his son would do.  But evidently, he did.  If so, then the woman was right, he was a bad parent.  He hadn’t taught his son well enough at all, and he hadn’t had a clue what his son had really been up to.

He finished his slice of pizza and sat there sipping on his large drink until it was gone.  He got up, threw the trash into one of the trash cans, grabbed the big awkward bag of diapers in one hand, and the little girl cat purse in his other hand, and began walking again.

He felt like such a fool, but now he knew that he deserved it.  But his son didn’t deserve the kind of beating they had given him.  He didn’t deserve to have his finger nearly ripped off.  His Jimmy may have done something bad, but he didn’t deserve that kind of treatment at all.  Whoever these people were, they belonged in jail!

 

--- §§§§§§§§§§ ---

 

Phyllis watched Bruce slowly walking through the mall.  He looked a sight, even though the outfit she had put together for him was actually quite pretty, and it…almost suited him.  She had spoken to him in such a way that he would think it was someone else who had hired her to do this to him and his son.  He would never know that in reality, it was her son Jason who Jimmy had beaten and humiliated so badly.

The police would never find them.  Neither she nor any of her friends would ever be caught and punished for what they had done today.  They had been that careful about everything.

“Phyllis,” Larry said.  “Jason’s here.”

“Let him in,” she replied.

A moment later, her son walked into the room.  “Hello Darling,” she greeted him happily.  She hugged him tightly.  “How are you?”

“Fine Mom,” he told her.  “Did you do it?  Did you punish him?”

“Oh yes!” she replied.

“Can I see?”

“Yes,” she told him.  “But be prepared.  In order to make sure he’d remember this and never bully anyone again, we had to beat him really badly.  Jason, I’m afraid he looks…disturbing.  Very disturbing.  He’s going to need a hospital when we let him go.”

“I don’t care!  I’m glad!  I want to see him.”

She nodded, then turned to Larry.  “Put Jimmy up on the main monitor.”

The picture on the large screen that had been showing the mall was replaced with a picture coming from the camera in a nearby room.  It showed Jimmy, still tied to the chair.  His head hung limply.  There was blood everywhere.  If you looked closely, you could see the broken finger and the strange angle it was at.

Jason looked closely.  “Who’s that?” he asked.

“That’s Jimmy now,” Phyllis told her son.  “The one who did all that to you.  He just looks a lot different now because of the beating we gave him.”

Jason looked closer.  “Uh Mom.  That’s not Jimmy Falco.  That’s Jimmy Falletti.  He’s one of the good kids.  He’s one of my friends.”

Phyllis was shocked.  “That’s not the kid who bullied you?  You said Jimmy Falco.”

“Yeah.  But that’s not him.”

She looked at the man on the mall’s security video.  “And that’s not Jimmy Falco’s father?”

“Mom, the only time I saw Falco’s father, he was a big hairy guy with a beard.”

Phyllis looked back and forth from the screen showing Jimmy who had been beaten so badly, to another monitor showing the boy’s father Bruce.  She had kidnapped and punished the wrong kid.  She had kidnapped and punished the wrong father.

“Oh shit!” she muttered.

“Mom,” Jason said.  “What are you going to do?  Jimmy Falletti is my friend.”

“I don’t know,” Phyllis replied.  She turned to Larry.  “Shut it down…now!  Shut it all down and pack it all up.  We’ve got to get out of here.”

There was sudden commotion everywhere as everything in all the rooms was shut down, packed away, and removed from the building.  As they were finishing, Phyllis pulled her phone out again and dialed the only number that phone had ever contacted.

 

--- §§§§§§§§§§ ---

 

Bruce was very annoyed when once again his phone rang.  He had to set down the big package of diapers again, and dig into his cat purse to pull the thing out.  “Yeah?” he said into the phone.

“Bruce,” the woman’s voice came urgently.  “I’m so sorry.  We just found out that we kidnapped and punished the wrong people.  It wasn’t your son who did the damage, it was another Jimmy.  We’ll be gone from here in a minute.  As soon as were away I’ll phone the police and an ambulance for your Jimmy.  I’m afraid you’ll have to make whatever arrangements for yourself that you can.  This phone I have will be destroyed so it can’t ever be traced.  Nobody will ever be able to trace us.  Again, we apologize for our mistake.  Oh, you might want to change that diaper before you do anything else.  It appears to be sagging a bit.  Just a thought.  Sorry again Bruce.”

Bruce was stunned.  The wrong Jimmy?  All of this was…a mistake?  At least whoever it was said they were going to call the police and an ambulance.  But what was he going to do now about himself?  He realized something, yeah, changing his diaper might not be a bad start.  He ran back to the food court and the men’s room there.  Five minutes later, he came out wearing a fresh diaper and feeling much better.  The only thing on his mind was getting to the hospital to see Jimmy.  But how?  A cab?  Uber?  The police?  He grabbed the phone and called a cab company.

As he waited outside of the mall for the cab, he couldn’t help it.  After that large drink he had consumed, he wet his fresh diaper.  Shit!  Now the damn thing would show under his dress again.  Damn!  But he was still going to the hospital first.  He was still going to see his Jimmy.  Getting to his injured son was all he could think about.  Telling Jimmy how much he loved him was the most important thing in the world that he could do.

To hell with the way he was dressed.  His son was all that mattered.

 

Sissy Shopping Nightmare - Part 3 of 4

 

Sissy Shopping Nightmare

By Karen Singer

 

Part 3 of 4

 

Once his old clothes were discarded, along with any dignity he might have once had, he wandered slowly out of the food court.  As expected, his phone dinged again.  The message simply said:  See how pretty?  It was the picture though that concerned him the most.  The picture was of him walking through the food court, wearing the dress.  He really, really wanted to throw that phone at someone.  He looked all around, but still couldn’t figure out who might be watching him…other than everyone in the mall.

Once again his phone dinging made him cringe.  What now?  He read the message and couldn’t believe it.  The picture accompanying it didn’t even matter.  It was all…ridiculous!  Stupid!  And…unnerving.

The message read:  Go to the drug store on the bottom level and buy a package of adult diapers.  The picture of course was of a package of diapers.

 

 

He was wearing a dress.  He was wearing little girl shoes and socks.  He was wearing a bra.  Now…diapers?  It was too much!  Way too much!  At least they had told him where to find the damn things.  He trudged himself downstairs while it seemed like every person in the mall was looking at him.  He went into the drug store and had to look around to find the damn things.  There!  The easiest thing to find yet…except for maybe the damn bra he was wearing.

“Lovely dress,” the woman at the cash register said as she laughed at the sight of him.  He was tempted to hit her too, but he didn’t.  He simply walked out of the store with a large bag that contained the package of diapers.  At least they were in a bag, but he knew for sure now what would happen next.  Just a few steps out of the store, the phone dinged again and he dug it out of the little girl purse.  Yeah.  No surprise.  Back to the same men’s room in the food court, and put one of the damn diapers on.  And whoever had sent the message had emphasized that he couldn’t pee until he was wearing the diaper.

He didn’t want to do it.  He really didn’t want to do it.  But then, he didn’t want to wear anything of what he had on.  None of it.  Someone was really, really sick!  What was the purpose of all this anyway?  What had his son Jimmy done?  He had no clue, and no answers.  And the food court was so far away from the damn pharmacy.  It was a long humiliating walk, wearing a very noticeable and embarrassing dress, carrying a large heavy package, and of course his cat purse.

Doing his best to ignore the looks from everyone in the mall, he walked into the men’s room again.  Just going in made his need to pee grow that much worse.  It was getting difficult, but he held it.  Once again he went into one of the stalls and closed the door.  He opened the package of diapers and pulled one out…and stopped.  He couldn’t.  He just couldn’t!  It was too much.  All of it was to much.  What had Jimmy done?  But the images in his mind of what they had already done to Jimmy were simply beyond imagining.  Right there and then, he began crying.  His body slipped down until he was sitting on the floor with his back up against the wall of the stall.  He could do nothing but sit there…and cry.  Why did they have to hurt his son?  Why?  And why did they have to do this to him?

He had been sitting and crying for some time when his phone signaled another text message.  He almost ignored it, but he dug into his purse to pull the phone out anyway.  He read the message:  It looks like you’re getting the picture now, but no more lollygagging in there.  You’ve got five minutes to get that diaper on and get out of there or your son is going to get hurt.  Five minutes…and I’ve already started the timer.

Five minutes?  He needed to move.  He needed to…  But he couldn’t.  It was all too much!  It would be too much for anyone.  He sat there and started crying all over again.

He didn’t know how long he sat there before the phone dinged again.  There was just a very short message:  Five minutes again.  This time instead of a picture, he found a video.  He watched in absolute horror as someone took a pair of pliers to the little finger on Jimmy’s hand, and with a sickening sudden twist, and a loud snap, Jimmy started screaming his head off in pain.  Jimmy’s finger was broken and left at an impossible angle.  And then the pliers moved to his next finger before the video ended.

No!  No!  They had hurt Jimmy even worse.  They didn’t need to do that!  Why?  Why?  Why?  Sobbing, he forced himself to his feet.  He pulled his underwear off under his dress.  The diaper was a bit difficult to figure out, but he finally managed it.  With tears still streaming down his face, he hurried out of the stall and hurried out past everyone in the bathroom.  All the way out into the food court, where his damn phone sounded off again.

With the big bag of diapers in his hand, he had to stop and put the bag down so he could dig the phone out of his cat purse.  He read the message:  Throw your old underwear in the trash but keep the diapers, then pull up the hem of your dress and turn around slowly in a complete circle so the watchers can all see your diaper.  Wet yourself first if you can.  Otherwise, you’ll be doing the same thing later to show what you did.  You may be doing it later anyway.

Now they wanted him to wet his diaper like…  Damn he hated this.  He needed to pee.  There was no doubt about that.  Not after spending so much time right next to a toilet in the men’s room.

He did his best to soak his diaper.  It wasn’t easy, but he managed it.  As he stood there, he felt an entire warm lake beginning to form on the inside of his diaper.  He was amazed that the thing didn’t leak.  When it was over, he took a hesitant step, then another.  He chanced walking carefully over to the trash can where he dug his old underwear out of the bag and threw it into the trash.  He now had literally nothing left of what he had been wearing when he had arrived.  Nothing!

As instructed.  He lifted the hem of his dress and slowly turned in a complete circle.  People were watching him and laughing at him from everywhere.  It was impossible to tell who the watchers might be, other than literally everyone in the mall.  That’s who was watching him.  Everyone!

Red faced and full of shame, he let go of the hem of his dress and picked up the bag that contained the diapers.  He took a step away from the food court, then another.  The flood inside his diaper had mostly disappeared, but he could easily feel how much thicker his diaper was now.  He could also feel it sagging a bit between his legs.  He stopped as the realization hit him.  Everyone would now be able to see the diaper below the hem of his dress.  Shit!  Things just kept getting worse and worse.

His phone dinged again and he stopped so he could read the next bit of bad news…although he knew there was nothing they could do to him that would matter anymore.  The only thing that mattered was to keep Jimmy from getting hurt worse than he already was.  It was the same game he had been playing all day now.  But they had proven that they wouldn’t hesitate in the least to dish out more punishment if he didn’t comply immediately.

He stared at the new message and the picture that accompanied it.  Oh joy.  The message read:  Go back to the pharmacy and buy this nail polish.  He looked at the picture.  Yeah, it would be.  The polish appeared to be sparkly pink.  Probably something a young girl would choose instead of an adult.

 

 

He felt like he was walking most of the length of the mall once again as he made his way back to the pharmacy.  As he walked, there was no missing the feel of his soaked and sagging diaper.  There was also no missing the fact that everyone in the mall was looking at him.  The dress he was wearing was enough of a statement to make sure of it.  He did his best to ignore everyone in the mall.  He had little choice in that.

Ten minutes after walking into the pharmacy, he was heading back to the food court with new instructions:  Go back to the food court, sit at a table, and polish your nails.  Two coats.  Don’t mess it up and make sure it’s dry before you do anything else.

Yeah right.  No surprise.  And of course, he would be stuck painting his nails in front of everyone in the world.  Or close to it.

He wasn’t walking fast anymore.  He just couldn’t.  He was too unhappy.  Too ashamed.  The lunch hour was mostly over but there were still a lot of people in the food court.  He chose a table and sat down.  He set his cat purse on the table along with his bag of diapers.  He removed the nail polish from the small bag the pharmacy had put it in.  He looked at it.  Yeah, it was still just as sparkly pink as it  was in the store before he bought it.

He shook the bottle then removed the cap and looked at the applicator brush.  He had to be careful not to drip the polish on the table.  Hating what he was about to do, he wiped some of the polish on the brush back into the bottle, then spread the fingers of his left hand out on the table, and brushed the polish on his thumb nail.  Sparkly pink.  Very sparkly pink.  Even with just that much, nobody in the world could miss it.  He kept going, finishing the entire large nail.  Just looking at it made him feel squeamish.  Not wanting Jimmy to get hurt, he kept going.  On to the next finger and eventually on to his other hand.

After two coats, he carefully screwed the cap back onto the bottle and kept his fingers spread wide on the table.  How long did it take for nail polish to dry?  His fingernails looked just as wet now as when he had applied the stuff.  He glanced at the clock, then decided to give it fifteen minutes.  When the time was up, he gingerly touched his finger to one of the nails.  Nothing happened.  He was hoping it was dry.

Still trying to be careful in case his hands weren’t completely dry, he stuck the nail polish into his cat purse, got up, and threw the small bag it had come in into the trash.  He went back to the table to get his things, and his phone rang.  Were the damn messages never going to end?  He guessed no.  Not until they picked him up tonight.  Would they let him go home then?  More importantly, how about Jimmy?  After breaking his finger, Jimmy needed a hospital more than ever.

Still being careful of the polish on his nails, he dug the phone out of his silly purse.  The message and accompanying picture were easy to find.  What they wanted wasn’t easy to stomach:  Go to Fey’s Fine Jewelry.  Ask for Fey.  The message was bad enough, but the picture told the rest of the story.  The picture showed a pair of pink stud earrings.

 

 

Where the heck was Fey’s Fine Jewelry?  Probably as far from the food court as they could put it.

The walk turned out to be another long one, probably purposely, just to put him on display in front of as many people as possible.  Fey turned out to be an older woman who made it plain right from the start that she didn’t like him.  Bruce wondered what they had told her about him.  He himself wanted to know what someone’s problem with him was.

“Come along,” Fey told him briskly.  A few minutes later, not Fey, but another woman was installing pink stud earrings into his freshly pierced ears.  When they showed him the earrings, he recognized them as a perfect match to the ones in the picture.  After the earrings were in, he got to look in the mirror.  Yeah.  Pink sparkles.  Pink, pink, on top of pink.  Little girl pink.

  He considered himself lucky that the bill for the jewelry wasn’t as much as he thought it would be.  He was simply glad to get out of there, but not glad when he remembered that his phone would probably ring soon with another message for him.

 

Sissy Shopping Nightmare - Part 2 of 4

 

Sissy Shopping Nightmare

By Karen Singer

 

Part 2 of 4

 

Not knowing what else to do, Bruce wandered slowly toward the center of the mall.  Two minutes later, another message came in on his phone  A message with another picture.  He didn’t need the message to tell him what he needed to do.  That much was already obvious.  In fact, it had been obvious from the moment he had started looking for the socks.  The picture that came into his phone was a picture of a pair of shoes.  Black shiny shoes with a rounded toe and two straps that went across.  Shoes that looked like they would be perfect for a little girl, even though he already knew they would have to fit him.  Which meant that even though the shoes looked like they would be for a little girl, the shoes he had to find would actually be adult women’s shoes.  The short message said:  This EXACT pair.  Not something that looks like them.  We’ll know the difference.

 

 

The exact pair.  That didn’t sound good.  He realized immediately that he needed a shoe store.  But wait, didn’t the department stores sell shoes too?  Once again he turned around and headed back into the department store he had just left.

No, no, no!  Why did finding everything have to be so damn difficult?  He had checked each of the four major department stores attached to the mall and hadn’t found what he was looking for.  Oh, he found a lot of shoes that were similar, but not that exact pair.  They always had either a higher heel or the toe was pointed, or they only had one strap instead of two, or they weren’t shiny in the least.  And as a man looking so carefully through all of the women’s shoes, it had been a somewhat embarrassing task…let alone a man carrying a little girl purse in his hands.  So that left him now searching for the shoe stores in the mall that weren’t the big department stores.  No, they couldn’t make this easy for him at all, could they.  He went into two different shoe stores before he finally found the shoes he needed.

Once he found them though, he was faced with a new problem.  They were going to make him wear the stupid things.  The moment he stepped out into the concourse with the shoes in a bag, his phone dinged again and he read the message.  Yup.  No surprise.  Hating himself, hating the people forcing him to do this more than ever, he sat on a bench and removed his shoes.  He stuck the left little girl style shoe onto his foot and buckled it…to the scrutiny of all the people walking by, who also saw what kind of socks he was wearing.  The people who watched him buckling the right shoe onto his foot seemed to be watching even closer.    When he stood up and looked down, he could no longer see the embarrassing frills on his socks anymore, but the white socks stood out in stark contrast to the shiny black of his shoes, seeming to make them more obvious than they already were.

Knowing for certain that he was being watched closely, as per his instructions, his male shoes went into the trash along with the bags and the box from the shoes.  He felt like more of a fool than ever with his little girl purse, and now little girl shoes and socks on his feet.  What would be next?  He was afraid to find out, even though he was sure that whatever they wanted next, it would be something else that looked like it might belong to a little girl.

Stupid.  It was all stupid.  And very, very embarrassing.  Why were they making him do this?  It made no sense at all!

The moment his hands were empty the next message came in.  This one was far different from the previous messages.  Yes, there was a picture.  An embarrassing picture, but this message actually specified what store he needed to go to, and what to do once he got there.  The message read:  Go to Fine Feminine Foundations.  Ask for Claire.  She’ll tell you what to do.  The picture of course, was of a bra.

 

 

He was sure he had passed the store somewhere, but he didn’t remember where.  He walked around until he found a mall directory.  There.  Shit!  It was practically on the other side of the mall.  Turning his steps in that direction, and hating what was in store for him, he hurried as quickly as he could to the specified women’s lingerie store.  Going inside, he noticed a few women in the shop.  He found the cash register and asked for Claire.  The woman he asked seemed to look him over carefully with a rather distasteful look on her face.  “Just a minute,” she finally told him.  A few moments later, a woman approached him.

“So you’re the monster,” she said as she walked up to him and stared him in the face.

“Monster?  What are you talking about?”

“You!”

“What did I do?”

“As if you don’t know.  You…and your damn son.  You both should be hung.”

“What?  What did I do?” he demanded.

“Shit!” she replied.  “Come along.”  She turned and walked away.

“What did I do?  I don’t know!” Bruce argued.  He got no answer from the woman at all.

She led him into a tiny room and had him remove his shirt.  In moments, she was measuring his chest.  No matter how much he tried to get her to tell him anything at all, the woman remained silent.  She left him in the room, then came back a few minutes later and fastened a pink frilly woman’s bra around his chest.  She carefully tightened all the straps.  Bruce noticed that even though the inside of the bra cups were empty, they were still stiff enough to stand out from his chest.  At least they didn’t appear to be large.  In fact, they were surprisingly small.

The woman had him put his shirt on.  Buttoning it up was weird with the breasts now underneath.  In fact, he was lucky he could button it over top of the new breasts he appeared to have.

As soon as he was dressed, she led him out to the cash register where he again had to reach into his little girl cat purse and pull his wallet out.  Two minutes later, he was back out in the mall concourse, this time with the little girl cat purse in his hand, shiny little girl shoes on his feet with frilly white socks, and now his chest looked like he had breasts under his shirt.

How much more of this stupidity were they going to pile on him?

Just a few seconds out of the store, his phone dinged again.  He’d really like to take the thing and break it.  Instead, he checked the message.  Shit!  Shit!  Shit!  The message said:  Find it and buy one in size 12.  Better hurry.  You’re falling behind.  Would you like a video of us hurting Jimmy to get you moving faster? 

 

The picture was of a white dress with pink flowers on it.  He was sure it was made for a woman, but it still looked like something a little girl might wear.  But his bigger problem was that if he didn’t hurry, they would hurt Jimmy again.  He began to run.  Where should he look first?  There.  A women’s clothing store.

Running with a purse in his hand was strange.  Especially that purse.  Running made more people notice him.  But still, he couldn’t let them hurt his son.  They had already done enough to him.

So…many…women’s clothes!  So many dresses!  There were thousands of them.  How was he supposed to find the right one?  It was impossible!  Purse in hand, he literally ran from store to store, searching desperately, and very much afraid that in his haste he had missed it.  What would he do then?  What would they do to Jimmy?  Hurt him?  Or kill him?  Either…or both.

Desperate, he ran into another of the big department stores, and right into the women’s section.  His eyes fell on a mannequin.  It was wearing the same exact dress.  Finally!  He found a rack of them and easily found one that said size twelve on the label.  He pulled it out and rushed with it to the checkout.

His rushing caught the attention of too many people, but it couldn’t be helped.  The checkout woman said nothing, but she certainly gave him a lot of strange looks as he paid for the dress.  As soon as possible, he was hurrying as fast as he could out to the concourse again.  It had taken him forever to find that dress.  Had they hurt his son again?  He could only pray that they hadn’t.

The phone dinged the moment he left the store, more proof that he was being watched.  He briefly looked around but couldn’t tell who it might be.  There were literally too many people looking at him.

He checked the new message on his phone.  No picture this time, just words:  Take your pretty new dress to the men’s room by the food court and put it on.  DON’T pee in there.  Someone is already there waiting to watch to make sure you don’t.  More when you get out.

Ugh!  He had been afraid they were going to make him wear the stupid thing.  Now he had proof.  The men’s room by the food court.  Where the heck was that again?  He had only passed it at least six times today already.  Was there a men’s room there?  And he couldn’t even pee when he got there because someone would be watching while he was in there?  Did they want to watch him putting the dress on too?  Although if he did put the dress on, whoever it was wouldn’t be able to miss it if they tried since he would have to walk out of there too.

Growing tired from all his rushing around, he hurried toward the food court.  The men’s room was easy to find.  It was also somewhat crowded since it was lunchtime already.  Having to search to find everything had taken him hours.

Really not wanting to do it, he went into one of the stalls.  He leaned back against the wall of the stall for just a moment to breathe a bit.  This was so hard, and it was getting worse.  But Jimmy.  He was doing all of this just for Jimmy.  What had Jimmy done that was so bad?  What had Jimmy done that his son hadn’t told him about?  Whatever it had been, it must have been awfully bad.  His son?  His Jimmy?  He still found it hard to believe.  He also found it hard to believe that he was actually going to put the dress on and wear it, not only out of the stall he was in, but all over the stupid friggin mall!

Before removing his clothes, he glanced down at the toilet.  Yeah, he could pee.  In fact, the more he looked at the toilet the more he felt like he needed to pee.  But the instructions…and someone was out there close enough to hear him if he did.  Sighing and wanting to punch someone from the frustration of it all, he began removing his pants.  His shirt went next.  He pulled the dress from the bag and pulled hard on the tags to break the plastic holding them to the dress.

He unzipped the back of it and stepped into it.  He pulled it up his body.  He realized the dress had two layers.  A thick white inner layer that couldn’t be seen through, and a white gauzy outer layer that was semi-transparent.  The outer layer was decorated with pink roses and green leaves.  The dress had no sleeves at all, just two semi-wide straps that went over his shoulders.  The waist of the thing seemed to come right up underneath the bra he was wearing, although the dress itself completely hid the bra, but not the bumps the bra created.  The waist had a pink and green band that went all the way around and ended in a big bow just off center under his “breasts.”  From just below the waistband, the skirt of the dress flared way out until it ended…far shorter than he thought it should.

He reached behind him to zip the thing up.  Just reaching the zipper was difficult.  He had to fight and stretch hard to pull that zipper up as high as it would go.  The dress began to squeeze his entire chest tightly.  Very tightly.  The darn thing was too small.  Why had they specified that it had to be a size twelve?  With one final effort, the zipper was up as far as it would go.  It was on.

His hands went down to his sides, and he realized he could easily grab the bottom hem of the dress with his hands.  It was that short!  Damn!  He hoped the stupid thing would at least cover his underwear.  He pressed in on the skirt.  Yeah.  It looked like it would, but not by much.

Now what?  He realized he had no choice but to leave the safe confines of the stall.  He put his pants and shirt into the bag that had held the dress.  He grabbed his little girl cat purse.  And he opened the stall door.  He did his best not to look at anyone as he walked purposefully out of the bathroom and into the crowded food court.  Yeah.  People were turning to look at him everywhere.  How could they not?

Halfway across the food court, the darn phone dinged again.  He read the message, and wasn’t surprised:  Very pretty, from top to bottom.  I hope you’re enjoying yourself.  Throw your pants and shirt into a trash can.  Make sure to throw them separately along with any bags you’re still carrying.  One of our watchers has been instructed to make sure you put your pants and your shirt into the trash.  You’re wearing a pretty dress now.  What would you need pants and a shirt for?

Bruce really wanted to hit someone…or cry.