The thermometer read an arctic −35°C. There was cold, and then there was cold. That was cold!

Connor had just moved to Toronto and was not comfortable with the Celsius scale. He took a pencil and pad and quickly wrote down the conversion formula that he remembered:

F = 1.8C + 32°.

He pulled out his programmable calculator and decided just to use the direct conversion instead of calculating it with the formula. So he entered the current temperature and pressed the key for the units conversion. The device displayed:

−31_°F.

Then Connor remembered, that when it’s that cold, Celsius or Fahrenheit hardly matters, since −40°C = −40°F.

Mom had all of Connor’s thermal underwear with her in a rental car. The power lines that supplied electricity to their neighborhood had apparently collapsed under a heavy load of snow and ice. Their own laundry appliances were electric, so she had taken the laundry with her when she left for work that morning. She would stop at a laundromat and do a load or two before coming home. She had left her son only a single pair of blue jeans; two plaid, flannel “lumberjack” shirts; and two changes of underwear. He also had an additional sweater, which he would likely need today. Mom and Sis had offered to take him shopping for new clothes, but he had declined to go with them. Now Connor understood his mistake, since his old clothes had not yet been delivered. His wardrobe was only what he had brought in his luggage nearly two weeks ago.

Of course, with the power out there was no television. Then Connor looked over to his desktop. No Internet either. The only working devices he had for news or entertainment were his battery-powered radio and MP3-player.

Mom had also left for work before the school closings were announced. Apparently such closings were somewhat unusual in Toronto, since the cold wintry weather with its snow and ice were more or less facts of life there. Only the more extreme conditions would shut down schools across the city. The radio announcer apologized for the tardy notices, but reported that the school principals and their superintendents had not cancelled classes until they were certain that it were necessary.

On the other hand, never before did Connor have such an opportunity to experience an idyllic, rugged winter. Just a month ago, Mom, his sister Caitlin, and he were residing in Miami. Toronto, to him, was the home of the Bluejays and the Raptors, sports teams who occasionally showed up to play against the Marlins and the Heat, respectively. But otherwise, Toronto was just a point on a political map of North America, large enough to show the major Canadian cities. Then on Friday, December 30th, Mom came home from her office with the news that her company was promoting and transferring her elsewhere and that they would be moving from Miami within a week. The following Tuesday, January 3rd, her boss told her that her new office would be in Toronto. While they resented the disruption to their lives and lifestyles, this was not only a transfer, but also a promotion with a healthy raise in salary, and with the current exchange rate, the Canadian dollar was even worth a couple cents more than the American. Besides, who wanted to look for a new job in this economy? So, they took a flight out to Toronto the next day, and Thursday, January 5th, Mom enrolled Caitlin and Connor in their new school.

So Connor and his sister had only completed their first full week of school before having classes cancelled in their very first Canadian winter storm. So he thought that he might venture outside, into the elements, learning to take seriously his role as a new son of Canada. But again, he didn’t have any long underwear handy.

* * *

Raising his knuckles to rap on the door of his sister’s bedroom, Connor paused, lowering his fist as he thought twice about what he had in mind. Then he shivered when he felt more cold air drafting through the hallway, so he quickly knocked on her door.

“That you, Li’l Bro?” Caitlin answered in her yet so sad voice. She was still broken-hearted, their unplanned, unimagined move having forced her, of course, to break-up with her steady boyfriend, Bobby Jim, quite suddenly.

“Yeah. Can I come in?”

“I guess,” she conceded opening her door. “Whaddya want, Connor?”

He noticed that his sister was wearing a white turtleneck with a fluffy pink pullover and an almost knee-length, pleated skirt in navy blue wool. A pair of 80-denier, opaque gray, cable-knit tights covered her legs and she wore a pair of black ballet flats with satiny black bows up front. Her long, wavy brown hair was gathered into a dropped ponytail, secured with a prominent bow of black velvet and hanging down the front of her right shoulder. Her manner of dress suggested not only a simply elegant, feminine style, but also, perhaps even more important for today, the comfort of warmth, a cozy feeling of protection. And Connor needed some of that.

“Mom took all my long underwear to the laundry this morning, so I don’t have any ’til she gits home,” he explained. “I—I—”

“Yes?” his sister prompted him. She had never seen him blush so badly. She held her own urge to giggle back, because his expression suggested that although he needed her help in earnest, whatever it was, he was embarrassed to ask for it.

“I just wondered if—if—,” he stammered. “Sis, could I wear a pair of your tights? Somethin’ warm?”

Her frown of nearly three-week’s duration slowly morphed, firstly into a demure grin, and then into a sly smile. Connor himself was quite happy to see her flash her first smile on the Great Canadian Shield. Mom and he both were worrying about how their daughter and sister would fare in life on the tundra. After all, her past summer wardrobes had consisted entirely of bikinis, with but one or two maillots for “formal” occasions, all of which could be packed in the outer, zippered accessory pockets of the soft nylon case for her laptop computer. These minimal garments had been complemented most recently by two pairs of cork-soled, wedge sandals and the daintiest pair of espadrilles ever seen or worn in southern Florida.

“You wanna wear ’em under your blue jeans then?”

“Uh—yeah! That’s the idea.”

“Don’t-cha have any longjohns?”

“Mom took ’em all to the laundry with her today.”

He watched his sister hop and skip, dance really, over to her dresser and open a drawer halfway down. She withdrew an unopened package of 80-denier, opaque white, cable-knit tights. She started just to give them to her brother, but then stopped and looked at him just a moment as devious ideas began to form in the twists and turns of her mischievous mind. Her dimples punctuated an absolutely wicked smile. She reached down and opened a bottom drawer. She had kept matching sets of training bras and panties and put them all into her drawer as keepsakes, even though she would never wear them again. But unexpectedly, now was the moment for her to hand down, as if to a sister, a matched set of underthings in powder blue satin. Then she brought the soft garments over to her brother.

“Since they’re my tights,” she began, “you have to follow my rules. You can wear my tights, but only if you wear these, too.”

“But—but—,” her brother stammered.

“Li’l Bro, it’ll be okay,” she reassured him, pulling him into a warm, sisterly hug. “No one but us will know. Not if you don’t tell, anyway,” she said, giggling.

“I—I—,” he stammered again.

“Go now. Put these on. Then I’ll show you how to put your tights on after you’re wearin’ the bra and panties,” promised Sis kindly, also handing him a fluffy pink dressing gown. “You can wear this over ’em until your ready. But do try an’ go along with it, Connor. You might even like this if you give yourself an honest chance at it.”

He sighed as he relaxed and decided it would be all right to do this after all. Somehow, as apprehensive as he was, he felt that he could trust his sister about this. Yet a few minutes later, he returned to her room, hiding himself as warmly in his sister’s fluffy dressing gown as he could. He noticed her laptop open on her desk.

“Computer workin’, Sis?”

“At least I remembered to plug in the charger before bed.” She was unhappy that she had forgotten to do the same with her cellphone. “But I can’t find any Wi-Fi signal I can use to log onto the Web.”

“Mom’s fixin’ to get the house wired for the Internet soon,” remarked Connor. “After all, she really likes that kinda thing.”

Their home in Miami had DSL ports in every room and they each had their own desktops networked into a central home server. Mom had her personal computer in her bedroom and another workstation in the den as well. Even the entertainment center, security, lighting, and kitchen appliances had been networked to the main server.

“So what can we do for fun today?” Connor wondered aloud. “No ’Net, no tee-vee, no videogames. Think I left my console in the car. What I wouldn’t give for school to be open right now!”

Caitlin just smiled at him. “Take off the robe and sit down on the bed next to me.” He did as she instructed, noticing that she had taken her tights off and held them in hand. Then she noticed that his bra was somewhat crooked.

“I see you had some trouble with the bra,” she half-sang in her southern drawl. She was bound and determined against all odds to hold on to her accustomed dialect here in the Great White North.

“Yeah! How do you girls manage?”

“It takes practice,” she said smiling. “Well, just a little, anyway. But there’s a trick you can use that’s really easy, too.” She reached behind him and unfastened the bra. “Now hold it like this…” She demonstrated holding it backwards, with the cups behind her and the hooked ends in front of her, and then gave it back to her brother. “Now hook it that way an’ turn it aroun’ so the cups are in front… That’s right!… Now, just put your arms through the straps as you pull it up… That’s it!… An’ now look in the mirror to make sure it’s even. You might need t’ adjust it a little…“

“Oh!… So that’s how it’s done!” Bro now felt his embarrassment slightly muted by honest pride in getting it right. “And it feels more comf’table now.”

“That’s ’cause y’adjusted it right,” Caitlin assured him. “That color looks good on you, too.”

He felt a slight tingle as he grinned in the mirror, feeling just a little naughty, but then let himself relax. And his sister smiled as she experienced a naughty tingle of her own, having talked her brother into wearing her undergarments.

“Now, to put on your tights, start by gatherin’ each leg into a ball, like this…,” she said demonstrating the technique with her own pair. “Put your toe in an’ slowly work ’em up each leg, a little at a time on each side… That way you don’t stretch or run ’em… Good!… Now stand and pull ’em up over your panties, over your waist… And you’re done!”

She smiled at her brother, about to cover his shoulders with the dressing gown, but then stopped.

“Oh! I know!” she remembered suddenly. “You need one more thing!” She went back to her dresser and retrieved another item, a white satin camisole trimmed in powder blue, with a tiny blue ribbon tied in a bow on the front and matching blue shoulder straps. “This is a cami. It’s like an undershirt but more comfy.”

She slipped the camisole over his head and shoulders.

“So, how does it all feel, Li’l Bro?”

“Okay, I think,” answered Connor. “I could git used to it.”

“Then you should git the rest o’ your clothes on,” she said with a giggle as she kissed his cheek. So Connor ran back to his own room to pull his jeans on and cover the bra up with his shirt.

* * *

As he stepped out into the crisp, cold air of the Canadian winter, Connor remembered a simple rule to approximate the temperature conversion. For Celsius to Fahrenheit, double it and add thirty.

But now Connor knew another way to relate temperatures on the Celsius scale. Instead of converting temperatures, he now had an experiential understanding of just how cold −35°C was.

Minus 35 degrees Celsius was cold enough that not having long underwear was a personal crisis.

Minus 35 degrees Celsius was cold enough to envy girls wearing warm, winter-weight tights.

Minus 35 degrees Celsius was cold enough to ask his sister for a pair of warm, winter-weight tights.

Minus 35 degrees Celsius was cold enough for him to wear his sister’s satin training bra, matching panties, and a camisole as a condition of wearing her warm, 80-denier winter-weight tights.

Minus 35 degrees Celsius was cold enough that wearing his sister’s lingerie and tights was not so bad, since he could venture outside into his first Canadian winter storm.

Minus 35 degrees Celsius was cold enough that wearing his sister’s lingerie and tights was all worth it just to see her smile again. This move had been more difficult for Caitlin, perhaps, than himself.

Besides, Caitlin was right. It was fun, more naughty than embarrassing. The garments felt physically comfortable, pleasurable in fact. Thirty minutes ago, Connor had feared wearing his sister’s things. Now he worried more because he was no longer afraid of it. But he also felt like he wanted to run to her, then hug and tell her.

* * *

Caitlin decided it was time to make herself presentable and sat at her vanity for the first time since moving north of the border. She really had not set it up properly yet, so she opened her make-up kit with a battery-powered illuminated mirror in the lid.

She couldn’t help but think that her brother was so sweet asking to wear her tights.

A few minutes later, she heard Connor exit the front door of their new home. She slipped her feet into her flats again and danced over to her closet and began sorting through her dresses, skirts, blouses, and sweaters.

“What to wear?” Caitlin asked herself aloud. “What to wear?”

Smiling, she took a short, dark blue turtlenecked sweater-dress from the closet rod by its padded hanger and placed it on a hook behind the door. That would be perfect for the afternoon. After all, his jeans would be cold and wet when Connor came back inside, and he’d need something warm and dry to wear, or so Caitlin thought to herself. And the color of this dress would look so nice with her brother’s beautiful eyes!