Home is Where the Collar Is

Day 1 - Panties

It had been one of those spring days that would normally would be lodged firmly in the back of one's head and blend with all the rest of the days like it and eventually be consigned to the dim recollections of fond nostalgia, coated with a patina of convenient forgetfulness of the pains and stressors of the day.

For Reggie, though, this particular day would forever stand out as the day his life changed completely.

It had started innocently enough. Jamie had asked over lunch if Reggie had any plans that night, since it was a Friday, and when he admitted he was looking at another night of a re-heatable dinner in front of the TV with maybe some mobile games thrown in for flavor, she'd been adamant.

"You're coming over to my place tonight."

Reggie's brows came together so much they almost looked like a velvety caterpillar, "But...Friday night is girl's night for you."

She nodded, "Yep, and that's why you're coming over early. I'm giving you a makeover and letting you wear some clothes from my closet."

His face twisted into something akin to a baby being forced to eat a candy made of pure sour. "Jamie, I will look incredibly stupid."

Jamie rolled her eyes, "Hun, you're practically Girl Shaped. I bet you would pass in a heartbeat."

"'Pass?' What's that mean?"

Her mouth quirked up, "It means that nobody'd be able to tell you weren't a girl if you tried to look the part even a little."

Reggie rolled his eyes, "Bullshit. Basically everything about me screams, 'dude.'"

Jamie got that look on her face that told Reggie he was in trouble. She'd gotten that look in the past, usually when she was about to rope him into something he didn't want to do. "Tell you what," she started as she looked him up and down, "Let's make the bet real."

"What bet?"

"The one where I bet you'd pass as a girl with just a little effort." She ignored his scoff, "I bet that I can get you to pass as a girl right now with just a few tweaks to what you're already wearing."

For the first time since he'd met her, he felt fully confident she would lose this one. "Fine, you're on. Now how are you planning on proving it?"

She dug her phone out of her purse with one hand while waving dismissively with the other, "Pfft, that's easy. We post a poll online. Oh, don't worry, you big baby!" she said before he could interrupt like he was clearly planning to do, "I'll make sure your face is either not in the shot or blurred, nobody will know it's you."

He smirked, "Fine, but I get to see all the pictures before you post them to make sure."

She nodded, "That's fair, now stand up."

She stood as he did, ducking out from under the umbrella over their lunch table. For a Friday afternoon, the cafe was unusually quiet, but that probably could be attributed to the convention happening a couple of blocks over taking up all the parking in the downtown corridor their office was in. Reggie was grateful for the quiet as Jamie got more intimate with his clothes than she ever had before. It was fairly pleasant, but he was doing his best to not think of it lest a certain body part make it obvious what was going through his head.

In just a few minutes, she had tugged his shirt here, tied a knot there, hitched up his cargos and tightened the belt a bit, then adjusted his tube socks so they were bunched up around his ankles (something that he did NOT like, it made little dents in his skin where the elastic got too tight), then pulled a brush out of her purse and started teasing his hair this way and that. Soon enough she was satisfied with his appearance and started posing him.

Feeling rather akin to a Barbie doll, he let her manipulate the placement of his feet, the tilt of his hips, how and where he held his hands. A few more minutes and a smile lit her face. She grabbed her phone and took a few steps back to get his whole form in the shot. A few skeuomorphic camera sounds later, she gestured to the seat to indicate he could sit again as she started fiddling with her phone. He decided to continue eating his lunch as she worked.

About 20 minutes later, she grunted in satisfaction and turned the phone to face him. He swallowed down the last bit of salad he'd just shoveled into his mouth and took the device, scrolling through the images on the screen. He started feeling nervous again, "Did you doctor these more than just blurring my face?" he snapped.

She had picked up her sandwich as he started looking through the photos, so had to hastily swallow with a shake of her head, "Nope," she said when she finally cleared her mouth, "That's 100% you." She snatched back the phone, then tapped a couple buttons. "Now we wait, though I can't imagine it'll take long."

"Why?" he asked, mostly interrogatory but with an undercurrent of nervousness.

"I set the poll to trigger an alert at 100 votes. I figure that'll be enough to give us a good sample. The question was, 'Is this a guy or girl?' And they could pick, 'guy,' 'girl,' or 'I can't tell.'"

Reggie was about to comment on how that seemed fair when the phone made a little, tinny trumpet sound. He looked down at it, anxiety starting to make his neck sweat a bit, "...new ringtone?" he guessed.

She grinned wickedly, "Nah, that's the alert for the app that I posted the poll on." She picked her phone back up and unlocked the screen with a flourish. Her wicked grin turned to one of glee as she triumphantly turned the phone to face Reggie.

His heart sank; 73 people agreed he looked like a girl, 17 had gone with the 'can't tell' option, and only 10 people had confirmed his masculinity.

Before they could discuss it further, an employee of the cafe hustled up to their table, "I'm sorry, your server had to duck out for a family emergency. If you want to leave them a tip I can pass it along to them on their next shift, but in the meantime can I get you ladies anything else?"

Reggie felt like he'd been punched in the gut as Jamie replied with obvious glee, "Oh, I think we're good. I'll just finish up, can you bring me change for the tip?"

--

It was, perhaps, the most surreal party prep Reggie had ever been through, and it started with a pair of panties.

How could she know?!

The thought clamored in his mind, drowning out so many other thoughts. Jamie had laid out clothes on her bed before he got there and gave Reggie the room to change. "We'll get your face done up after, just get your silly, frumpy clothes off and we're going to get you looking like one of the girls in no time...well, more than you do now, anyway." She winked at him then vacated before he'd even taken stock of the outfit, and now wished he'd fought harder to not be there. He'd rather be anywhere but in this home, at this time, with that pair of panties on the bed, waiting for him to put them on.

For they were furry. Not just slightly fuzzy, it was fur. He hadn't even moved any closer to the bed since spotting the undergarments, so he wasn't sure if they were as soft and sensual to the touch as they looked, but damned if he wasn't reminded of chinchilla fur. It was at least a good half-inch long fur and so tightly packed that, had he not known better, he would have thought it came from an actual chinchilla. Jamie was one of the types of people that wouldn't have stood for wearing animal fur if it could be helped, so this was likely to be some sort of synthetic. It was a gorgeous dark gray, the coloration the light being gradiated by the fine hairs of the fur so it appeared to be waves of silky smoothness, as though the color were a segment of a pond frozen in time after a stone had been tossed into it.

He was startled out of his stunned state when he heard a somewhat distant knock. The first guest had just arrived and he was still standing in the clothes he had worn to work. Jamie would have his head if he wasn't ready soon, she still wanted to do some makeup and his hair. He crossed the remaining space to the bed and, as though they were going to bite him, reached out to take the panties.

As soon as his fingertips touched the fur, the hesitation fled. He pressed his fingers through the incredibly soft hair, confirming that it was, indeed, very much like chinchilla fur. He picked up the garment and, on a whim, brought it up to his face, stroking the fur over his cheek. It felt sinfully sensuous, an absolutely decadent buzzing sensation practically throttling his limbic system as he stroked it over his skin. He was seized with an absolute need to wear this decadent clothing. He could barely bring himself to put the panties down, but once he did, he scrambled to strip off his day clothes.

A small part of his brain was frantically trying to figure out how Jamie had known about his (frankly embarrassing) kink. He never browsed for it on his phone, and never mentioned it or searched for it on his work computer. And he never, ever, told anyone about it.

Most of his concentration, however, was on getting into those scrumptious panties! He spared a glance at his body, but he'd never much cared for looking at it naked. It was just a body, one he happened to have his brain in, so, therefore, belonged to him and required maintenance and upkeep due to being the only compatible meat suit for his center of consciousness. His unremarkable 'package' was usually just a means to an end of feeling the pleasure of orgasm, and he had the passing thought that his dick would be cradled by the deliciously delicate gusset of the panties, and that shut off all other thought in his head until he found himself sliding the waistband over his hips and, were he honest, nearly came right then.

Once the panties were on and the initial euphoria trailed off, he realized he was now standing nearly naked in his coworker's bedroom.

He could stop the whole thing right here, right now. He could just take the panties off, put on his regular clothes, and leave. He could...

It all came down to taking the panties off, though, and his friend had pretty much handed him a chance to indulge in a fetish he barely felt confident enough to entertain in the privacy of his own home. He had them on now, he was going to enjoy them.

He went about putting on the rest of the clothes, though now with much less intention and enthusiasm. He was leery of the yoga pants, concerned his junk would show up as an obvious bulge, but to his surprise, his 'front' completely flat and smooth as he would have expected to see on a woman. Not to mention they made his ass look like he could stop traffic! The top was basically a t-shirt, though cut and styled to give it a slightly 'grunge' look without being completely trashy. He looked like he'd fit in with a concert-going crowd.

Finally, there were the shoes. A pair of sandal heels that Jamie insisted would fit him just fine. He grumbled a bit, but sat on the edge of the bed and set about putting them on.

He had just succeeded in getting the second sandal on when Jamie entered with a quiet knock. She looked him up and down and that dangerous grin returned as her head started to bob in a self-satisfied nod. "Oh, oh yes! This will work very well!" Saying nothing further, she hustled into the bathroom to grab, apparently, a small bag with a 'big box' department store logo on it, one that was not known for cheap or remotely affordable products. A brush came out first as Jamie stepped in front of him and she set about brushing through his slightly curly dirty blonde hair. Giving a self-satisfied nod after about a minute and a half of brushing, she then plucked the glasses off his face.

"Hey!" he blurted, grabbing for the frames.

She gently smacked his hand remonstratively, "Oh, don't get your panties in a twist," she said with a wink, "You'll get them back, I just have to apply this first." So saying, she pulled a smaller bag from the department store bag, this one having the brand of makeup, a rather high-end label if his limited forays to the mall where his favorite tech store was at gave him any sort of baseline. "You look so natural, honestly it'd be shame to use too much makeup, anyway; I think just this..." she pulled out a black tube, followed by another that was half black and half yellow, "...should do the trick. Now sit still!" she ordered.

She opened the all-black tube, turning out to be mascara. It took a bit of a struggle with his instincts to not flinch away as she pulled the brush through his lashes, something that felt surprisingly calming, and he felt a bit of that tingling warmth that the panties imparted upon him earlier. Replacing the brush back in the mascara and twisting it closed, she then opened the other tube, which was frankly completely alien to his experience, but not having grown up around someone who cared to teach him about makeup was made up for in an instant when Jamie demonstrated that lip color could come in paint-on form, which explained the brush tip.

She handed him back his glasses with a flourish, recapped the lip color, and stepped back. "Now, take a look and tell me you still think someone will think you're a boy, and I'll call you a liar." She pulled open the door to what turned out to be her bedroom closet to reveal a full-length mirror on the inside of the door. "Go on, then, stand up and look at yourself."

Tentatively, afraid that he'd fall over in the heels, he got to his feet and minced over to the mirror and took a nervous peek.

His eyes popped open completely and his jaw sagged slack in shock. There was a girl in the mirror. A girl wearing glasses that no longer looked 'geeky' but now looked downright cute. Her hair was swept to the side and looked so very pixy-butch that if Reggie was a lesbian he'd be begging the girl to go out with him. The shirt was his style, but sitting on this girl's body made her look like the very best of the 'bad crowd' girls he'd gone to high school with. Then there was the black yoga pants that made her legs look absolutely amazing and the heels that made her ass just pop...and it took a solid 45 seconds for Reggie to connect the girl in the mirror with him.

"See?" said his hostess, "Now come along, I'm going to introduce you to the rest of the girls, I think they'll absolutely love you.

--

They did, in fact, absolutely love him...or rather 'her.' 'She' was introduced as Regina, something 'she' was grateful for, as the thought of what name to go by hadn't even occurred to...her. After the first several introductions of Jamie explaining about how "she's genuinely shy, I'm just glad I got her to come tonight," being referred to with she/her pronouns started to feel natural. Jamie seemed completely okay with Regina hanging off her elbow the whole night, though she wondered occasionally if she was making things awkward. She would be standing next to Jamie, nursing a drink, looking around the room for the forty-kajillionth time, mostly keeping time with the thoughts in her own head, when she'd glance over at whomever Jamie was talking to, and she'd catch...glimpses. Intent gazes, eyes locked on her face or her chest. Each time the look only seemed to be there for just a moment, then they'd return their full attention to Jamie. It was so fleeting Regina wasn't even sure if she was actually seeing the looks or if it was her overactive (and slightly paranoid) imagination spinning out the start of a hallucination where she was called out for impersonating a woman. She thought one person might have been looking at her crotch, but a surreptitious glance down showed that the miracle panties were doing their job still, her yoga pants were still curve-hugging and showing a perfectly feminine 'Y'. And once again, by the time she looked back to the woman who she thought had been looking, they were focussed back on Jamie with no sign they'd ever even acknowledged Regina's existence.

It began to make her twitchy. As the night wore on, she was feeling more and more paranoid, until finally she managed to steer Jamie into the kitchen where they had a moment of relative privacy.

"Jamie," she whispered, "I think they know!"

Jamie looked completely perplexed, "'Know...?' Know what, exactly?"

"They know I'm really a guy..." her whisper got progressively quieter with every syllable until she had to put her lips right up to Jamie's ear to make sure she was heard.

If she'd been drinking anything, Jamie would have made a spit take. "What?" she laughed, stifling it as she realized that Regina was starting to panic, "Oh, honey, I promise nobody suspects a thing. If anything, you may just be getting looks of interest now that you're not covering up that cute body of yours."

"What are you talking about?!" her fear was turning her screechy, she realized, but seemed unable to reign in the emotion as she kept whisper-shouting. "I'm covering up everything! I look like a girl!"

Jamie snorted in amusement, "Honey, look down and tell me that outfit hides anything." To her frustration, Regina had to admit that the shirt covered little in the way of body shape and the yoga pants may as well be panted on. Jamie continued, "I'm going to clue you in on something you obviously haven't picked up on, hun; pretty much every lady out there is queer. If they're looking at your clothes in any way, it's 'cause they think the clothes would look fantastic on their bedroom floor."

Regina blushed, then thought about exactly what Jamie was implying and blushed even harder. Jamie smirked, "Hun, careful, or you're going to set your hair on fire with that blush. And have you had anything but soda all night? Here," she reached over to her counter and grabbed a hard lemonade from the bucket of iced drinks, "Drink that, relax a bit. Enjoy the attention, you deserve it!"

Regina opened the bottle and chugged down a few good swallows and within moments was starting to feel the light 'buzz' that the more fruity drinks always gave her...him...her...whatever, apparently I'm hot as a girl, so it's 'her,' at least for the night. She giggled at the thought and the drunken state that inspired it, and she wasn't really able to explain what she was giggling at when asked without blowing the whole thing, so she just giggled harder and drank another mouthful of lemonade.

The night passed in an increasingly pleasant fog, Regina's insecurities over being 'a dude in girl's clothes' being drowned in the sea of inebriation.

Vaguely, distantly, she remembered being pried off a couch (she couldn't remember when she stopped following Jamie around like a good little pet), loaded into a car, then hauled into her apartment to be pretty much poured into her bed. She recognized very dimly that the person manhandling her was Jamie, and clumsily grabbed for her, catching her sleeve. "I wanchu t' know...I'm glad you did this t'me. I haven't felt right in ever, and you made me feel right for once, even if you were a...a bully." There was some sort of response, but she couldn't connect the dots from whatever the response was to any meaning in her brain, so she assumed it was Jamie's objection to being called a bully, "You were! But iz okay, 'cuz I'm so stupid. I prolly coulda had a good time like tonight 'long time ago if I wasn't a coward. You bullying me was good for me, jus a lil'."

There was a chuckle, it could have been darkly amused or just dark. Either way, it was the last thing Regina remembered from that night.