Breaking Free: Part One

This week I thought I would put up a piece of fiction I recently wrote.

This was my entry in the Haven Writing Challenge which had the topic of Confinement. There will be another part coming shortly. I did write it in a bit of a rush as I forgot the deadline for entries and so I would have liked to have written a bit more including more dialogue as the characters walk back to the halls at the end. I could have punched it up a bit to publish it here but I thought I would rather put it up in its original form. It  may sound a little autobiographical but it isn't really although there are bits and pieces that are inspired by various things/ideas/fantasies.

Hope you like.


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So what does confinement mean?

Well, being confined obviously. Being imprisoned, restrained, detained or held in captivity. I’m used to being confined and so much so that I thought I would never be free. The worst thing about it was that I just didn’t realise I had been confined. That confinement was my life and I just didn’t know any other way to be. I was confined to a male body and couldn’t get out.

Femininity wasn’t something I craved while growing up but it was something I saw out of the corner of my eye. Wonder Woman in her sparkly costume, make-up advertisements, long, flowing hair, girls’ school uniforms with such smart black tights and pleated skirts and every so often they all came together in someone I just envied like crazy and didn’t know why. I guess I thought I just fancied them but no matter who I dated I never came close to branching the subject of possibly trying on one of those nice dresses or maybe a skirt. No. I couldn’t let myself entertain the thought as it just wasn’t manly. It wasn’t for me and I couldn’t let it. That’s what I was told anyway, told by my relatives the television, the movies and the media. Stay in your box as that’s the way it had always been. There was that brief moment in the school play…with that blue dress …I was told it couldn’t happen again. It was embarrassing.

I hadn’t thought about it in years until I got to college and moved into the halls of residence. I found a small group of friends and we were inseparable for a while. All on the same Art Theory course so we would stay up into the night talking about… mainly rubbish but it was fun rubbish. After a late night’s drinking pre-Eurovision one night there was an idea. Lucy’s idea. What would it be like to switch clothes? Just for fun. Lucy was always suggesting odd ideas ‘just for fun’. There were three boys (me, Chris and Tom) and three girls (Lucy, Charlotte and Kim). Perfect match. I agreed reluctantly, as did we all, and so we swapped. Lucy took me into her bedroom and removed her short green dress, underwear and trainers while I did the same with my t-shirt, pants and jeans and needless to say it took one of us a longer time than the other. In fact Lucy had pretty much finished dressing by the time it took me to do up her faded pink bra. Well, put it on anyway, I still needed her help to do it up. Slipping into her pink knickers felt like something else though, so smooth and comforting. I wasn’t sure what I should feel at first and whether or not I should let myself feel pleasure for doing this. Was that wrong? When I put her black tights on my feelings doubled as I felt the nylon against my legs. I looked down and they didn’t resemble my legs at all. These were the sort of legs I would catch myself staring at while walking down the street.

The green dress fit better than I thought it would. Tighter most certainly and as Lucy zipped up the back I felt like I was being trapped in it for the night. Then she had an idea – there were wigs in the drama department, which would still be open. As I hastily tied up her trainers, feeling tight against my larger feet, she grabbed my hand and we rushed out the door and judging from the sounds in the other rooms the other guys were still struggling with bras. We ran over the common to the college, sneaked into the back room of the drama block and started trying on wigs until we found one that was the same length and shade of brown as Lucy’s hair. She jammed it on my head, gave it a little brush just to get the dust out (and some fake blood left over from a production of Dracula – I hope anyway) and give it some shape. Then we ran back and I can’t describe how free I felt running back hand in hand with Lucy.

My long hair flew around my head in the wind, I could feel the dress flying up and a gust of wind blasting my lower body. Lucy giggled and told me to stop flashing my knickers to everyone. Have I been doing dating wrong then, I asked with mock ignorance like a ditzy starlet. I just don’t know where that came from but it seemed like the right response. It certainly was to Lucy as she laughed so much all the way back asking me ‘in character’ questions. I loved it, I felt so free running back that night. In fact I don’t think I did come back that night; someone else did.