Primped and preened to perfection? There are still some things that Michael has to learn.

Strut Your Stuff On The Catwalk

"So, how was your first ever spa experience? I find them amazingly relaxing and rejuvenating," asked Reba.

"I think I can quite honestly say that it was an experience, the sort of which I have never had, nor ever expected to have." Or ever want to have again thought Michael, before the remembrance of Isabella's lips and hands flashed across his mind.

"They are quite unique here. Just think of all those poor men, never knowing this kind of experience."

"Yes, poor them."

"Anyway, time is running out, and we still have one more stop before Cinderella returns home."

Michael baulked, stopping dead when he saw the next shop they would be entering. The windows were full of racks of clothes, all sorts of clothes, skirts, blouses, suits, dresses, ball gowns. Just about everything that it seemed possible for a woman to wear. The final horror was upon him, the one thing that no man could do and survive with his ego intact, the ultimate indignity. "Clothes shopping," he said in despair.

"What?" said Reba. "Oh no, we're not shopping for clothes. There's not enough time left. For a proper shopping trip, we really need to start first thing on the morning, not this late in the day."

"What we are doing is almost as important. There is nothing that matches a good shopping trip, but you do really need to learn a bit of deportment. You're pretty good, as it is, but there are new things required for your new world that you have to learn." For a moment, Michael wondered if Reba actually believed that he was actually just play acting, if she was one of the people making him do this, or she was digging for more information.

Apart from the racks of clothes at the front, the shop they entered was practically empty, just floors and walls and an odd selection of junk scattered around, no goods of any sort. Halfway to the back was a wide set of steps leading up to a mezzanine section.

At the front of the shop was a table set with a full tea set for two. Behind the table was yet another woman, grey haired, elegantly dressed and holding a bone-china tea cup, with perfect elegance and poise. Michael had the feeling that not even an earthquake would cause the cup to tremble, or worse, spill. Seated beside her was a young woman, or, Michelle suspected, a sissy. In her hand, she held a small sandwich, which had been cut into a triangle, with its crusts removed. She showed the same poise, and was as elegantly dressed, but in a much younger, sissy style.

"Lady Ruff-Diamond," said Reba, "may I introduce to you Michelle, a new sissy. Michelle, this is Lady Sybil Ruff-Diamond, who will be doing you the honour of being your deportment teacher for today. Georgina is one of her sissies." Michael was impressed. During the day, Reba had been in total control, even when Madame had been correcting her mistakes, she had still been in control. Now, Reba was terrified. She even had an effect on Michael, who found himself attempting something like a curtsy. Michael could see Lady Ruff-Diamond as the matriarch of a large family, all under her thumb.

"Thank you, Reba." Lady Ruff-Diamond turned her eye on Michael. "I'm glad to see that the current generation has some politeness, even if they don't know the correct way to curtsy."

"Jane asked me to give you a short introductory lesson in the correct behaviour expected of a sissy, though why she insists on doing it with so little preparation and planning, I cannot even begin to understand."

"Now girl, let us see what you are made off. I want you to sit down at the table, take a sip of tea, rise, walk to the top of the stairs, turn and walk back down, and take your seat again."

Michael performed the requested actions, feeling Lady Ruff-Diamonds eyes on him the whole time. Only after he was seated, did it occur to Michael that women went to great efforts to avoid creasing their skirts. The bone China tea-cup felt very fragile in his hand, and he was scared that he would accidentally crush it. He felt the scrape and rattle as the cup went back on the saucer.

Trying to regain control, Michael slowly stood up, gently pushing the chair back. While he had a horrible vision of the chair shooting uncontrollably backwards, the worst that happened was a not too loud grating noise from the feet scraping against the floor.

As he walked over to the stair, Michael felt heavy, as if he was walking clumsily and liable to stumble. Climbing the stairs felt even worse, as if he was carrying a heavy rucksack, his feet slapping down on the treads like wet fish. At the top, he shuffled around, turning to face down the stairs, and look at the three people seated at the table. Their eyes all stared back at him, and he felt the impact of their expectations. Responding to this pressure, Michael tried to descend in a more ladylike manner, his hand resting on the banister, and sliding down it. He lifted his feet carefully, and put them back down as lightly as he could. For some reason he felt a matching lift in his feelings, as if the two were connected.

This time, when he sat, Michael remembered to do something about his skirt, but he wasn't entirely sure that the way he attempted to straighten it as he sat worked. To finish off, he took another sip of tea, actually noticing the delicate flavour, and replacing the cup without noise.

"That was very well done, Michelle," said Lady Ruff-Diamond. "For someone who has never been taught the correct way to behave." A brief moment of joy, followed by sadness. "Though I do believe that I can teach you something in the next hour."

The lessons started with sitting, standing and taking tea. Georgina demonstrated, Michael attempted to follow and Lady Ruff-Diamond criticised. It seemed that no matter how well he did, Lady Ruff-Diamond was never satisfied with the way Michael behaved, though it felt like she was criticising smaller and smaller details. When she explained the etiquette of raising your little finger when drinking tea, Michael felt enlightened

Eventually, "I feel that we have progressed sufficiently for the moment. Georgina, if you would please fetch the Issey Miyake suit, we can move on."

The suit was, inevitably, Michael supposed, a skirt suit. It was in a plain black, with a white satin blouse, and required him to wear a pair of black patent shoes with the highest heel he had ever worn. Michael's mind flashed back to the ridiculously heeled boots he had seen that morning, even though these were nowhere near as high.

While assisting him into the skirt, Georgina's hand brushed over his cock, and Michael was certain that more would have happened if Lady Ruff-Diamond hadn't interrupted. "Georgie, leave the poor girl alone. She's had a tiring day, and we don't have time for time. In any case, I'm pretty sure that Isabella beat you to it." With both blushing red, Georgina zipped up the skirt, and helped Michael into the matching jacket.

Michael found the skirt to be constricting, whenever he tried to take a normal step, the hem would snap taught against his knees, and he would be forced to shorten his step. The heels only added to his problems. Despite Georgina saying that they were only 2 inches, they made him feel like a giant, and as if he was going to fall over at any second.

Despite any wobbles, his training resumed, with a few changes. The partaking of tea stopped, and was replaced by learning how to walk up and down stairs in a tight skirt. His first time up the stairs was only possible with him grasping desperately to the banisters, Georgina holding his other hand, and Lady Ruff-Diamond dictating every step.

At the top, he turned around and looked down the vertiginous slope to the ground floor. It was only the support from Georgina that stopped him from falling down them. After a long pause to consider the possibility of spending the rest of his life in the shops mezzanine area, Michael made his even slower way down the stairs.

When he reached the bottom, Georgina squealed and bounced with joy, hugged Michael tight, and kissed him, hard, on the lips. "It's hard the first time you do stairs in heels and a skirt, but we'll soon have you running up and down them."

Michael didn't get to the point of running, but he did slowly get to the point where he could sit down with grace, rise to his feet, and walk up and down the stairs with at least apparent confidence.

"Amazing," said Lady Ruff-Diamond, "such natural talent. I think, we shall do the car next. Georgie, would you please fetch it." Before Michael could wonder about this, Georgina appeared from the back, pushing what looked like half a car. On his second look, Michael realised that it was a wooden mock-up of just a car door, and the passenger seat. "Getting in and out of a car is surprisingly difficult, if you don't want to inadvertently flash your knickers. And it's even harder if you do want to - getting the angle right so only your target sees requires very careful planning."

In and out, up and down. Michael soon learned that the skirt was too tight to flash his knickers, but this also meant that getting in and out required more control than he was used to. He would approach the car, delicately turn and drop his bum onto the seat, and swivel on the seat to adopt the required posture. Getting out of the car was harder, even with Georgina playing the part of the smitten swain, especially when the swain would attempt to steal a kiss, and he had to try to avoid this without giving offence. After a couple of failed attempts at avoiding Georgina's kiss and grope, Michael wasn't sure he wanted to.

"Excellent, excellent," said Lady Ruff-Diamond. "You have learnt so much, I think we can skip all the way to final lesson. Georgina, if you would be so kind as to fetch it."

When Georgina came back, she was pushing a dress rack, on which was a vast mass of white frills. With a mixture of inevitability and horror, Michael realised that the approaching mass was a wedding dress. He was about to break and run when Georgina kissed him on the cheek, and said "you going to look fabulous in this," and for some reason, this calmed him down.

Georgina insisted that Michael could not simply slip into the wedding dress, but had to wear all the associated items. She quickly stripped him of all his clothes, leaving him standing there, with one hand covering him penis, and the other vainly trying to cover the rest of him.

Georgina made great play of slipping the silk panties up his legs, lacing him into his first corset, and gartering his stockings. Her hands brushing over his bare skin, silk panties and stockings quickly had his erection straining at his panties. By the time she zipped up the back of the dress, and threw the veil over his head, all he could think of was the feel of the dress, the pressure in his testicles, and the desperate need to come. The only thing stopping him was Georgina's whispered order, "No coming where you'll stain your beautiful dress."

Even when they stood him in front of a mirror, Michael could only think of his desperate need to come. "Lady Sybil," said Georgina, "I think she's far too distracted to continue with her lessons. Can I give her some assistance?"

"I should think that she is distracted, you've done nothing but torment the poor sissy since she walked in the door. I shall punish you later for being so cruel to her, but I suppose we don't really have an alternative."

Michael could hear what was being said, but he paid little attention until he heard a rustling sound from his skirts, and he realised that Georgina was throwing them around as she dived under them. Just as he felt his panties being pulled down and Georgina's mouth clamp itself around his penis, he heard Lady Ruff-Diamond muse to Reba, "When a sissy is in lust, there is almost nothing you can do to stop her."

This was blotted out, as Georgina's mouth meant that he would not be making a mess, and he lost control. For what seemed like hours, he shuddered as he pumped his sperm into the willing, no, demanding mouth.

When he finally regained awareness, Michael realised that he was only upright because Reba was holding him up, and Georgina was standing, watching him recover, licking her lips. "Delicious," was the only word to escape her smiling lips.

Listless from his fourth orgasm of the day, Michael inspected himself in the mirror. The wedding dress made Michael think of the little dolls that used to be used to hide unused toilet rolls, with the way the skirt stood out like a huge meringue, covered in row upon row of lace. It's puffiness was supported upon both a hoop skirted petticoat and multiple layers of net petticoats. The bodice wasn't much better. While at first glance, it appeared to cover him completely up to the neck, a vast proportion of the material was translucent, with only a few patches of lace to cover his dignity. It was also covered in a swirling, disturbing pattern of glass crystals. The pattern of crystals continued down the train, which draped on the ground behind him. He supposed it was a small mercy that it was only a few feet long.

Michael knew that he was ignorant of women's fashion, but he had the feeling that the dress showed a distinct lack of taste.

"I know it's appalling," said Lady Ruff-Diamond, "but the important thing is the way that it moves, and requires you to move. As a second benefit, no-one will care if you put your foot down wrong, and tear a huge hole in it." From the look on Georgina's face, Michael wondered if he should take it as a challenge.

Walking in the wedding dress was yet another unique experience. When he started walking, it took about half a second for the dress to get the idea that it should be moving, the train dragged and made going round corners interesting, and if he stopped too quickly, the skirt would swing back and forth, like a ringing bell.

To enhance his learning, something like an obstacle course had been laid out using the bits of junk lying around the shop. A tight left turn at the aspidistra, slow down for the chicane formed from a delicate desk, and a chair that would fall over at the slightest contact and then a dignified glide down the final straight.

Michael was stumped when they added the stairs to the runway, as he could see no way to climb them without his multiple layers of petticoats getting in the way.

Georgina explained, "There are two ways you can do this, either you work your way through the layers of skirt and petticoat, until you find the bottom one, and then try to keep a good hold on the hem, or you make arrangements with your dressmaker." She showed him a couple of point on the skirt, where all the layers were tied together, and if he lifted there, the entire mass came up in a single movement that enabled him to slowly climb the stairs. "If you grab both points, you'll fund you can get up to quite a surprising speed on the flat. Perfect for when you need to do a Cinderella."

Coming down was a bit easier. "Put your hand on the banister, and use it as a guide. Feel for the first step with your foot. If you miss it, you'll either stumble or fall down the stairs. Look ahead, not down. You do it all by feel." Michael slowly felt his way down the stair, and he realised that the mass of skirts meant that even if he had tried to look, nothing would be visible. "Of course, the most important thing is to pause halfway down, looking all delicate and graceful. This gives you a chance to show off, and see if there is anyone you want to avoid."

As he progressed, they slowly became more picky about the way he moved. The skirts shouldn't bellow as he stopped, the picking up of his skirts should be more graceful, he shouldn't look like he was pausing as he started down the stairs.

Eventually, just as the universe will eventually run down, there appeared to be a general consensus that Michael had learnt as much as he could today.

Given the chance to relax, Michael collapsed into the nearest chair, causing his skirts to flare and show off that which a lady does not show, and another 10 minutes of lessons, this time how to sit down in a huge dress.

Lady Sybil Ruff-Diamond. Mixture of Sybil Vimes and one of the characters from "Carry on up the Khyber." I'm mainly thinking of the imperturbability from the dinner scene.