The Red Panties Test Pt. 04

"You okay?"

I looked up - and then up again - into the concerned eyes of the strawberry blonde next to me at the bar. To say she was tall would have been an understatement. She towered over me. She was about my age and pretty, in a slightly overblown way - the lipstick just a little too bright, the eye makeup bolder than it needed to be. But there was genuine concern in her expression, which I felt deserved some response. Fighting down the panic that was gripping me, I forced myself to speak.

"Thanks, I'm all right. It's just, er..."

I gestured vaguely around me, trying to convey the oppressive assault to the senses of having so many people around. It had been a long time since I'd been anywhere so crowded. It was hard to think, let alone hear, over the hubbub of conversation, itself intensified by the need to compete with the relentless music. And I was right in the busiest spot in the room, conscious of bodies pressing against me as we all jostled for position.

"It is, isn't it?" laughed the blonde, as if she knew exactly what I was trying to say. She paused to order drinks, then looked back down at me.

"Your first time, right? Here, I mean." I nodded. That wasn't strictly true, because I'd been to this bar before. Only... in all the ways that mattered it really was my first.

"Thought so," she said. "Listen, you look like you could do with some company. My group's found a good spot over in the corner. You'd be welcome to come and join us?"

For perhaps the first time that night I gave a smile that felt genuine and not forced. "Thanks, that's really nice of you. But I'm here with friends."

"Okay." If she was at all put off by the rejection, she didn't show it. "Well, if you change your mind, come and find me, yeah?"

She grinned again as she picked up her drinks and started pushing her way through the press of patrons. I stared after her, until she disappeared, then turned back to the bar to find that her space had been taken up by someone else. Cursing my inattention, I waited my turn until I could order.

Ten minutes later, and beers in hand, I began the trek back to the table where the others were waiting. I was nearly there, when I tripped over a stray leg. I would have fallen had its owner, a middle-aged man in a black leather jacket with short, grizzled hair, not risen swiftly from his chair and grabbed me. I teetered for a moment, then steadied. As I did, I felt the man's hand release his grip on my shoulders, but then run down my back and rest lightly on my bottom.

Shocked, I found the man's eyes. The protest on my lips died, however, in the face of a grin that was as impish as it was unexpected. It made him look at least ten years younger.

"Th-thank you," I managed to stammer, blinking at him but somehow unable to look away.

"Any time gorgeous," he responded. "Any time!" He gave my bottom a light squeeze, then released me.

I scurried away as fast as the four-inch heels of my strappy ankle-cage sandals would let me and plonked the bottles down on my companions' table. But I couldn't help sneaking a look back at my rescuer, who flashed me a dazzling smile. The men and women with whom he was sitting were all looking at me. One of them made a remark and the others all laughed - but whether the joke was at my expense or his, or someone else's entirely, I couldn't say.

I sat down heavily, taking care to keep my legs together as I'd been taught, and tugged the tight skirt down to ensure it was covering my stocking tops. Then I twisted my chair slightly, so my back was firmly to the man and his acquaintances.

Ayla laughed. "Making friends I see!"

"Not deliberately," I muttered, taking a sip of my beer.

"Oh, come on Nikki," crowed Trudie. "You were batting your pretty eyelids at him!" She peered at the man I was so resolutely trying not to see.

"He's actually quite cute," she continued. "I'm not really into older men... well actually I'm not into older men at all. Except Ewan McGregor, of course. But he doesn't count, cos I have as much chance with Ewan as Ayla does with... Hailee Steinfeld." She winked at the older woman, who rolled her eyes theatrically.

"I'll have you know my love for Hailee is pure and true, thank you," said Ayla, tucking her chin in the air to convey an air of noble suffering, but unable to keep the slight smile off her face. "And I won't have it sullied by comparing my goddess to some dude who isn't even the best actor to play his most famous character. Besides, what makes you think he could hold a candle to Hailee when it comes to singing?"

"Moulin Rouge," chirped Trudie and I simultaneously, then looked at each other and giggled. It was not, I reflected, the kind of laugh I would previously have produced, especially not in the higher tone I had taken to favouring as part of my new persona.

"Anyway," said Trudie, after a brief digression on actor/singers, "I was saying that your man over there seemed quite keen on you, Nikki. Or seems, I should say, cos he keeps looking over. And I'm pretty sure it's not me or Ayla he's trying to check out!"

She took a sip of her beer. "Anyway, maybe you should go over and..." Her voice trailed off and a quizzical look came over her face.

"Actually Nikki, do you know, I'm not sure I've asked you who you're into? I mean, I can distinctly recall us talking about any number of good-looking men. But maybe that was just me talking and you nodding along..."

"Hard for her to get a word in, I would think," commented Ayla snidely. But if Trudie heard, she didn't let it derail her train of thought.

"And I kind of got the impression you were into women? You were certainly checking me out when we first met. And I'm pretty sure you have a wife, just from the way you don't talk about your home life or invite us round."

Both Ayla and I opened our mouths to speak but she held her hands up to forestall us.

"Look, it's okay, not asking, right? You don't have to tell us if you don't want, it's all good." She downed a mouthful of beer and stared at it, as if trying to rehearse what she was about to say.

"Only," she eventually said, "we didn't just come to this place because it has the kind of crowd where you can fit in on your very first time in public. I am definitely on the lookout for a new boyfriend. If I can find some gorgeous gay guy and persuade him to take a walk on the wild side, well, mission accomplished!"

She grinned. "And as for your style guru here -" she jabbed a figure at Ayla "- I reckon she's already trying to figure out which of those two redheads over there she can get on the dancefloor. Dream on though sweetie, they're way too hot for you!"

She smiled to rob the jibe of any offence. But then her face became serious again.

"So, what's the story Nikki? I'm sure you want to make it through the evening without falling off your heels, or throwing up, or, you know, getting recognised by someone embarrassing. Which, FYI, not going to happen, especially not in that amazing wig."

She shook her head in admiration at the long, auburn curtain bangs that tumbled to my shoulders. Like the short leopard print skirt and the grey woollen top I had paired it with, it had been borrowed from Ayla.

"But aside from all that," continued Trudie, fixing me with an unusually intense stare, "who would you want to go home with tonight, if all the cards fell your way?"

She took a drain of her beer and slapped the glass down. "And don't say me either, we both know I'm not your type."

I looked back at her with my lips pursed and pondered the question. In truth, it was one I'd been asking myself for the last few weeks.

My very brief stay in prison had certainly caused me to worry about my sexuality. Or more especially, the embarrassing reaction to how I was treated by a pair of would-be predators who'd realised I was wearing the red panties forced on new inmates as a test.

My wife's new stepfather had then exploited those insecurities, as well as his imposing physicality, to get me to work for him as a combination of maid and personal secretary - and to wear female clothes while I did so.

All that was based on fear and intimidation, some real, some no doubt imagined. But that the arrangement might have been coercive in its origins didn't explain how willingly I had come to cooperate in my feminisation.

Yes, Warren had demanded I buy my own lingerie and keep my body fully shaved. But beyond that, he didn't control what I did elsewhere. He wasn't forcing me to spend my time at home dressed up. He hadn't compelled me to make so many return visits to the lingerie shop that I had come to befriend the sales assistant who served me - the same bubbly blonde who'd just asked me that searching question.

More recently, Warren had insisted I wear makeup as well. But it was my own choice to ask permission to delay turning up for work with my face painted until I could "do it properly." And then to seek help from Trudie's colleague Ayla, with whom I had spent weeks now learning not just how to put on my face and style my lengthening hair, but to sit, walk, gesture and talk in more feminine ways. Not to mention paint my nails.

As matters now stood, it was only on the evenings and weekends that I was still living as a man. On the days that I wasn't round at Warren's, or visiting Ayla on her days off, I had effectively become a housewife.

With my wife Jillian away at work, I had slipped into a routine where I did my makeup, put on one of my growing collection of maid uniforms and then spent the day doing chores, checking out new fashions or recipes online, or experimenting with higher and higher heels. We no longer paid a cleaner to come in, as I was doing it all. And I'd taken over a lot of the cooking as well.

I now kept three suitcases of clothes and shoes in an old wardrobe in the shed, along with a stash of special lingerie hidden in the back of a chest of drawers in the bedroom. This last included my prized collection of stay-up stockings, which I wore as often as I could - even when otherwise dressed as a man.

It was not just that I liked how they looked on my legs, which were quite long relative to my short torso. I just adored the way the elastic tops gripped my thighs, constantly reminding me of what I was wearing. There was a perverse excitement in that, even as I worried about being exposed as a crossdresser.

To say that I was at all comfortable would be a gross exaggeration. I was anything but that around Warren, or Daddy as he now insisted I call him. Any time we were in the same room, I found myself tensing up, just wondering what he might do to me - or command me to do to him.

At my house, I was often on tenterhooks about the prospect of my wife unexpectedly returning from work to find me dressed as a maid. As it was, I kept wondering when she would notice the tell tale signs of what I was doing: the different way I was sitting and walking, my steadily lengthening hair, the scents from all the beauty products I was using, the marks around my feet that exactly matched her own after a day in high-heeled pumps, the tiny flecks of nail polish or mascara or eyeshadow that I hadn't quite cleaned off...

Jillian was certainly spending a lot less time overtly worrying about me now. It was clear that I had found a purpose to my life again, even if she didn't know the true nature of that purpose.

Or dd she? I sometimes caught her giving me a quizzical look, as if there was something she was trying to figure out. Maybe she saw enough to be suspicious but couldn't work out quite what I was doing. Or perhaps feared that I was having some sort of affair. Which was simultaneously far off the truth and yet worryingly close, depending on how you classified the bizarre relationship I now had with her new stepfather.

Yet if she was concerned about me spending my time with another woman, she didn't seem to mind me taking time out each week to catch up with "old friends from university" that she didn't know and "probably wouldn't like." Just as I was doing tonight.

Still, I worried about her using x-ray vision to see the stockings under my pants, or finding my stash of lingerie, or wondering why her own clothes or shoes seemed to have been worn, or... any one of a thousand other things that would reveal my secret.

Even at the lingerie shop, which had become a home away from home, I stressed about being recognised by other customers. The same when I was having coffee with Trudie. It was only at Ayla's place that I could completely relax.

Nevertheless, I was feeling far happier overall that at any time since I lost my career as a lawyer and was very briefly imprisoned - and maybe even since earlier than that.

What I needed, I had come to realise, was to be in someone else's control. Most obviously Warren's, of course. But Trudie's and Ayla's as well. They thought they were helping me to achieve goals of my own. But in fact, they were in charge of my feminisation, pushing me to do things I would never have done on my own.

Like going out in public for the first time as Dominique. The fact that I had twice in the past week opened the front door at home to accept deliveries, and only afterwards realised to my horror I'd been in my full maid's regalia, suggested I was ready to take the leap. But it was my two girlfriends who'd effectively made the decision for me.

There was plenty of evidence then to suggest that I was willingly going along with my transformation, even if there was compulsion at its core. But that still left the question of sexuality.

I had always been into the opposite sex, not my own. Now that I was out of my post-prison funk, I still found Jillian attractive and enjoyed having sex with her, even if I had noticed a tendency to let her take the lead much more consistently than during the earlier days of our relationship. And I was looking at other women as much as I ever did. Only...

Only now what I often thought when seeing a sexy female seemed to be more admiration than lust. I found myself wondering how I could get my hair looking that good, whether that colour combination could work for me, where I could get those fabulous shoes...

And then there was that twinge of jealousy at anyone attractive with a cleavage, Trudie very much included. I had bought breast forms to wear inside my bras and had them on tonight. Nothing dramatic, just enough to fill out my B cups. But though the weight was right, and they were lifelike enough when felt through clothing, I couldn't flaunt them in the same way as natural boobs. Perhaps that was why I hadn't yet worn them for Daddy.

Ah yes, Daddy. The source of both my increasingly frequent transformations and all my doubts about who I really was.

When he had first insisted I dress up, I assumed it was done just as a power trip but feared that he would do something more.

As the weeks of working for him had stretched into months and I slipped more and more under his thrall, there had only ever been occasional hints that he might want or expect any sexual services. In theory, that should have put me at my ease - or as much as it was possible to do in the context of the bizarre relationship we had forged.

In practice, however, I had become fixated with both the man himself and what I imagined he might do to me. When I was with him, I had to steel myself not to stare at his crotch. And at other times I would find myself fantasising about his cock - how big it might be, how I would touch or lick or swallow it, how far into my orifices it might go, what it would feel like to have it inside me...

None of these fantasies ever sparked any arousal on my part, of the kind I had felt during my first day working for him, and then more powerfully when he spanked me. I didn't find the idea of sex with Daddy at all exciting. But all the same, I couldn't stop thinking about it.

He was certainly doing nothing to make me feel like an ordinary employee. Not with the way that he insisted on standing or sitting so close to me, and constantly resting his large hands on my shoulders, arms, bottom or thighs. I was aware of every touch, had to work hard not to shiver when he squeezed or lightly stroked some part of my anatomy.

And then there was the way he talked to me, never using my real name. I was always princess, or honey, or sweetheart. Or a good girl if I did something well. He didn't call me Dominque or Nikki, but only because I hadn't yet revealed those names. I knew that I would - and soon.

Warren also had a way of reminding me just how dangerous a man he could be to cross. It wasn't just his size, but the increasing sense I was getting that he might be not just involved in criminal activities, but directing and profiting from them.

The access I was getting to his business affairs in theory made me a threat. But he knew, and I knew, that I would no more spill a word about what I was learning than tell Jillian about being his maid. His casual references to putting me over his knee and giving me a good spanking if I made a mistake with the filing, or gagging me and handcuffing me to my desk if I interrupted one of his phone calls, were all the reminder I needed about his control.

Those allusions to physical punishment or restraint, coupled with the constant physical and verbal reminders of my submission, were also doing nothing to defuse the sexual tension between us. He enjoyed stoking it, I could see. And yet still he did nothing to bring it to a head, content instead to smile his knowing smile and let me come to the boil. It had got to the point where I caught myself feeling impatient while at his apartment, wondering why he hadn't yet made a proper move on me.

But the infection (if that's what it really was) in my thinking had spread further still. If I was so obsessed with the idea of Daddy fucking me, I reasoned, maybe I really must be gay after all. Or perhaps I wasn't into men, but Dominique was?

And that in turn made me start looking at other guys, wondering if Dominique would be into them - or if they would be into her.

And now here she was, out in the world... And, as I looked round the crowded bar, I could see there were guys here and there who were looking at me and sizing me up, some sneakily, others (like the man who had saved me from falling) much more bold about it.

This was a place for gay men and lesbians, and there were plenty of those. But Ayla had said it was also a haunt for transsexuals and crossdressers - and for those who wanted to pick them up.

As much as I was proud of how glamorous I now looked, I couldn't fool myself into thinking I would pass as a woman, other than in dim light. But here, I didn't need to...

I had pondered whether it was somehow wrong to go out fully dressed and made up, when Daddy hadn't yet seen me like this. But he hadn't said I couldn't either. And just this day I had promised him that when next he saw me it would be in makeup. The cool smile that prompted had raised goosebumps all over my body. What would he do to me if I looked the way I did this evening? And, more importantly perhaps, what did I really want him to do?

"Well?" prompted Trudie, cutting into my thoughts.

I pursed my coral-shaded lips, marvelling as always how just the taste of the lipstick could make me feel so feminine.

"Honestly Trudes? I'm not sure." I took another swallow of beer and put my glass down. "But I think I should try and find out." On an impulse, I got to my feet. "If you girls don't mind, there's someone I want to go and catch up with."

"Oh ho!" said Trudie, with a wicked grin. "So, your gallant old saviour is in with a shot, huh?"

"Not my type," I answered firmly. And for a wonder, that actually felt true. "Catch you later, okay?" Not wanting to stop and explain, in case I lost my nerve, I set off across the bar in search of my target.