>                The St. Patrick's Day Masquerade
>                       by Paula Thomas



When I attended college, I had the good fortune of living on
campus. Part of the social experience was eating and otherwise
associating with selected members of my dormitory and our sister
dorm. Over the years, we had established a dining ritual which
persisted through our entire college years. Every night at 5:00
pm, the male bunch and the female bunch would que up at the
dining hall to take up a table right along the entrance line to
the cafeteria.

Early in March, somebody mentioned that St. Patrick's Day was
approaching.  During the onsuing conversation, it was suggested
that it would be cute if one of the guys put on a kilt and came
to dinner in it. It was readily agreed that that would be a good
gag, so then it became a question of who would become the
gagster. Since I had a gift for voices (the Brogue) and was
reasonably slender, I became the logical choice.

I followed the girls back to the dorm, whereupon one of them
raced upstairs to gather the necessary articles. After several
minutes, she returned with a paper bag filled with things.
Catching her eye, I deflected suggestions that the group unpack
the bag and inspect the articles. Instead, I took it back to my
room and opened it privately.

Evidently Linda (the girl who had volunteered to supply the kilt)
had more grandious plans. In addition to the kilt, she had packed
panties, panty hose, panty girdle, a full slip, brassiere and a
blouse. I walked back to her dorm and buzzed her room.

"Linda, why did you put those other things in the bag?"

"I thought they should be. After all, a kilt is a woman's
garment, isn't it?

"Not in Scotland, it's not. Maybe I should come up."

I went up to Linda's room. She and Brenda let me in and closed
the door behind me. Linda spoke first.

"We thought that you might be interested in a little more
elaborate prank than dressing up for St. Paddy's Day."

"Such as what."

"Well, for starters, how would you like to spend the night in our
dorm."

Before she could yell "curlers" I was back in my room planning
the next day. We modified the original plan to include a costume
change at 10:00 am. I was to show up for breakfast wearing the
kilt, knee socks, starched shirt and blazer at 7:30 am. At 9:15,
after my first class, I was to return to my dorm and shave myself
from armpit to foot. I would then put on the panties, pantyhose,
and girdle Linda that provided and show up at her room.

Right at 9:45, I buzzed Linda. She led me up to her room and sat
me down on her roommate's bed. Motioning me to remove my outer
clothes, she surveyed what she had to work with. Obviously her
first task was my face. I had not shaved off my mustache, nor for
that matter even gone out of my way to shave particuarly close.
She first attacked my mustache, probing at it with a device that
would first sting and then tug at the individual hairs. When she
was done with the mustache, Linda dove into my eyebrows.

While not satisfied with my beard, Linda and I agreed that we
could work on that at some later date. Instead she turned her
attention to making do with what she had. Uncovering an
impressive array of cosmetics, Linda began to dab and pat all
over my face. Most of her ministrations concentrated about the
eyes. When she was done there, she moved down to the lips. After
nearly two hours, she was done there also.

It was approaching the noon hour but Linda didn't feel that we
were even remotely ready. The biggest problem now was the hair.
Although my hair was plenty long enough, it had no order to it.
Linda fetched a tub of water and poured some chemicals into it.
Tipping my head back into the water, she lathered my hair
thoroughly. After wrapping my hair in a towel she went down the
hall to fetch a new tub of water. One more session in the tub to
rinse out the soap. Another towel. More water. Next creme rinse,
another towel, more water. Now came the scissors. A snip here, a
snip there. Finally, she rolled my hair in 1" rollers.

After what seemed an eternity, she un-rolled my hair and brushed
it out.  Apparently satisfied with what she had created, she
turned her attenton to what I was wearing. I had taken care of
the delicate portion of my undergarments, so she first addressed
my bosom. Nothing creative here, she simply hooked a
Cross-My-Heart bra across my heart and stuffed it full of two
water filled balloons.

Next, she fetched the slip that she had originally packed with
the kilt. That fit just fine. Next the blouse. Real trouble.
Although the blouse was big enough around, the sleeves were
definitely too short. Linda went out scouting for a longer
sleeved blouse. I scouted my future dorm room.

Linda's former roommate had flunked out; not an uncommon
occurance. That left a desk, 6 feet of closet space and a 5
drawer chest to fill. The bed was identical to the one in my
room, a pull-out cot with a storage space in the headboard. A
cruise through Linda's closet revealed pretty much what I already
knew, she owned few dresses. Mostly her closet was filled with
blouses and skirts. Her dresser was real run of the road;
panties, bras, pantihose all thrown in to one drawer and the rest
of a college student's life thrown into the other fourhdzawers.

Linda returned with a blouse, and the blouses's owner, Gwen. It
was very lovely, ivory in color with ruffles down the front and
at the throat and wrists. I tried it on and it fit perfectly.
Next the kilt. Linda discovered what I had found out this
morning. The waistband on the kilt was about 1" shy of making it
around my waist. I had just extended the buttonhole with a piece
of string but Linda wasn't having part of that. She disappeared
again while Gwen and I talked about what classes we were taking,
that sort of stuff. In a few minutes, Linda appeared holding a
"waist whittler", you know the tight elastic band that hooks
around the waist.

I stood up and pulled the slip up around my chest so that Linda
could put it on me. After hooking it into the tightest eyelets,
we tried the kilt again. This time it fit with a couple of
fingers of slack. I tried on some of Linda's shoes but they were
way too tight. Gwen offered to loan me a pair of pumps since she
took a larger size than Linda. Gwen's shoes fit pretty well, not
that much of a surprise since she was easily as tall as my 5'10"
and probably close to the same weight.

It was only 4 pm and the dining hall didn't open until 5, so
Linda and I went down to the dorm's lounge. Gwen had some things
to do so she went back to her room. In the lounge, which
mercifully was deserted, Linda deliberately had me walking to get
used to the 2" pumps that Gwen loaned me and to allow her to
critique my movements. After the hour was up, she seemed
reasonably satisfied, so we went upstairs to fetch a couple of
coats and go over to the dining hall.

She had borrowed a meal ticket from one of her dorm mates to
avoid a problem at the dining hall (the meal tickets are coded by
dorm). We sailed through the check-in and went directly to the
cafeteria line. After going through the line, we walked over to
our regular table. Both the guys and girls were stunned. It took
a few minutes for them to stop staring and get back to their
meals.

After several minutes of eating and contemplation, the
conversation naturally got around to me. Everyone was amazed at
how believable I looked as a girl. Everyone complimented Linda on
what a fantastic job she had done. I could sense that a couple of
the guys were a little uncomfortable; perhaps wondering if I was
a fag and would come jump their bones in the middle of the night.
Most of the girls seemed intrigued and a little jealous of me.

After dinner, we normally gathered our book and went to the
library to study. This was as much a social ritual as practical.
It allowed us to interact with fellow classmates as the need
arose, permitted us of reference materials that we certainly
didn't have in our dorm rooms and allowed some of us to engage in
our favorite hobby, people watching.

Some of the regular bunch begged off when, at Linda's insistance
I agreed to continue to wear her kilt. On the other hand some of
the girls asked to come along. All told, seven of the group went
to the library to study for a few hours. The night at the library
was fairly uneventful. My only problem was remembering to keep my
knees together.

The University had a regular program of "artsy" (ie. unsellable)
movies that they would show in one of the auditoriums on campus
every night. This night they were showing Fellini's 8 1/2.
Someone suggested that we try to take in this flick, which met
with general approval. The movie started at 8 pm, which was only
30 minutes away so we left the library to drop off our books and
other unnecessary baggage.

Once at the auditorium, I took special pains to be seated between
Linda and Carol, a girl who I especially admired and who seemed
to be intrigued by my masquerade. The movie was quite an
experience. Fellini's flicks are a bit on the weird side to begin
with, but this one seemed to explore new limits. In addition,
this was a weird night, with many distractions. I had one hand in
Linda's lap and another in Carol's. Carol had a hand in my lap
finding out just what kind of man I was. I found it very hard to
concentrate on the movie.

The movie ended at 9:50 pm which left us about an hour before the
dorms would lock-up. We decided to go to the Student Center for a
soda before returning to the dorm. Around 10:45, we walked the
short distance to the dorm and Linda and I went up to her room. 

After taking off our coats and otherwise settling-in, I also took
off the kilt and the waist wittler. I left on the blouse, slip,
etc. since I was at least half artificial and I didn't really
know what the rest of the girls in the dorm knew or what they
were going to be told. Certainly Linda, Gwen, Carol and the rest
of the dining-hall-bunch knew who I was, but whether it
was/was-supposed-to-be general knowledge was an unknown.

By 11:30, the activity within the dorm seemed to reach a peak.
All of the girls had returned from their dates or studies, had
taken their showers or whatever and settled into their evening
routine. Gwen, Carol and various members of the
"dining-hall-bunch" passed in and out of Linda's room during the
night to gossip, exchange class notes and generally socialize.
Carol came by several times and twice invited me to return with
her to her room. About 1 am, Linda and I were thoroughly bushed
and ready to call it a day.

In the morning, I felt quite refreshed and ready to attack a new
day. I removed the remainder of my masquerade and put on the
clothes that I wore when I came to find Linda yesterday. I walked
back to my dorm, a new man.