Chapter 5: The Feminine Conspiracy
The silence in the fitting room stretched, thin and brittle. Mrs. Dimitri’s hands froze mid-air, her chalk hovering near the muslin pinned to his thigh. Jeannette’s cheerful mask slipped for a second, revealing a flash of pure annoyance.
“What my brother means,” Jeannette said, her voice regaining its smooth, diplomatic tone, “is that the foundation garment is a necessary part of the overall look. For the silhouette. It’s non-negotiable.”
Mrs. Dimitri stood up slowly, her knees cracking. She looked from Jeannette’s determined face to Jack’s, which he knew was burning under the layers of foundation. He saw the calculation in her eyes: a client’s strange request versus a paid commission.
“The silhouette,” she repeated slowly. She walked a slow circle around him, her critical gaze scraping over the lines of the muslin. “The dress is designed for a feminine form. Hips. A derriere. This…” She gestured vaguely at his lower half, encased in the sleek, hip-flattening girdle. “This is a column. I can take in the waist, I can pad the bust. But I cannot sew a bubble skirt onto a lamppost.”
The crass analogy hung in the air. Jack felt a hysterical laugh bubble up his throat, choked by the corset. A lamppost. That’s what he was. A functional, upright object, being decorated for a party.
“We’re aware of the… challenges,” Jeannette said, her voice tightening. “We have solutions. We’re working on the underlying architecture. For now, just fit the toile to the current architecture. We’ll handle the rest.”
Mrs. Dimitri sighed, the sound of someone who had seen too much. “As you wish. But the final dress, on the day, will only look right if the form beneath it matches the form I am cutting for today. You understand? I am drafting for curves that are not there.”
“They’ll be there,” Jeannette said, and the certainty in her voice was more frightening than any doubt.
The rest of the fitting passed in a blur of pin-pricks and passive-aggressive silence. When they finally escaped the studio, the late afternoon sun felt like an interrogation light.
“Well, she was a ray of sunshine,” Jeannette muttered, hailing a ride on her phone. “No vision. Come on, ill drop you off at home so you can rest up." She sighs and mumbled under her breath. "I need a drink and a plan."
She dropped him off and rushed to meat up with her aunt and mother.
The bistro was all soft edges and golden light, a world away from the stark, needle-filled room. Aunt Carol and Marie were already seated at a small table tucked by the window, a half-empty bottle of Chardonnay between them. They looked up, their faces expectant.
“How did it go?” Marie asked, pouring them each a glass as they sat.
“The seamstress is a literalist with no faith in modern endocrinology or squats,” Jeannette announced, draining half her glass in one go. “She called Jackie a lamppost.”
Marie’s hand flew to her mouth. “She didn’t.”
“She absolutely did,” Jeannette said, snagging a breadstick from the basket. “So, we have a problem. The dress is being cut for a shape he doesn’t have yet. We’ve got the top half handled. The bottom half is… under construction.”
Aunt Carol leaned forward, the candlelight glinting in her eyes. “Yet being the operative word. Biology isn’t destiny, darling. It’s a suggestion.” She took a slow, deliberate sip of wine. “We just need a more aggressive suggestion.”
“What are you thinking?” Marie asked, her voice dropping, though no one else in the bistro was listening.
“A multi-pronged approach,” Carol said, her tone shifting to cheerful conspiracy. “Topical, behavioral, and nutritional. I’ve been doing some reading.” She opened her large leather tote and pulled out a sleek, unmarked white tube. She placed it on the lace tablecloth like a winning poker card.
Jeannette picked it up. “What is it?”
“A compounded pill i bought years ago to use on myself. Estradiol and progesterone,” Carol said, as if listing the ingredients of a face moisturizer. "About 20 time as powerful as the pills from before. I got them from a friend in Russia"
Jeannette stared at the unmarked tube as if it might bite. "Those can't be legal, Carol."
"Legal is a parking ticket, darling," Carol said with a dismissive wave. "This is family. This is necessity." She took the tube back and tucked it away. "But you're right to be cautious. Pills are systemic. They'll soften his skin, yes, and redistribute some fat, but it's a shotgun approach. We need a sniper rifle." She leaned in, her voice dropping to a hushed, fervent whisper. "The seamstress said four months until the final fitting? That's our timeline. That is not a lot of time. So we don't just hope. We attack. I suggest we each take a tactical look into increasing his butt within four months. A full-spectrum campaign."
The phrase hung in the candlelit air, a shift from conspiracy to strategy. Marie nervously traced the rim of her wine glass. "What does that mean, a campaign?"
"It means we divide the labor," Jeannette said, her eyes lighting up with a familiar, problem-solving zeal. She pulled out her phone, her thumbs already flying across the screen. "Okay. Carol, you handle the... pharmaceutical and topical front. Those creams you mentioned. Research the strongest, safest options. We need targeted application."
"Already on it," Carol purred, sipping her wine. "I have a list. Estradiol gels, progesterone creams. We'll turn his morning routine into a battlefield supply drop. Also looking for a smaller panty girdle too. We'll get his butt natural looking so he wont need the large one. Which only increases his butt a little bit. Ill look for one thats just a penis sheath and fake vagina."
"Mom," Jeannette continued, not looking up. "You handle nutrition. We need a high-protein, high-healthy-fat diet designed for... gluteal hypertrophy." She sounded out the clinical term with satisfaction. "Smoothies, supplements. You're always reading about those superfoods."
Marie nodded slowly, then picked up her own phone under the table. "I saw a recipe for a flaxseed and soy protein shake. They have... natural compounds." She began searching quietly, her face illuminated by the screen's glow. "Oh and I have a ton of those weight gain pills too. Ill add those.
"And I," Jeannette announced, "will handle the physical conditioning." She showed them her phone, displaying a workout app with a cartoon of a dramatically curved silhouette. "Glute activation. Hip thrusts. Bulgarian split squats. We'll turn that lamppost into a... a curvy vintage streetlamp. He'll start tonight."
Back home, Jack was lying on his bed, the raw tenderness from the waxing a constant, low-level sting. The makeup was a stiff mask on his face. He heard Jeannette’s quick footsteps on the stairs.
"Up and at 'em, Jackie! No time for lounging," she chirped, bursting in without knocking. She wore workout leggings and a determined expression. "We've got a new project. Starting now."
"What now?" he groaned, not moving.
"Fitness! Wellness! It's for the dress, and for you," she said, her tone brooking no argument. She tossed a new yoga mat, still in its plastic wrap, onto the floor at the foot of his bed. "Unroll that. We're starting with something called fire hydrants. Don't ask, just do."
The next forty minutes were a humiliating blur of cramped, awkward movements. Jeannette followed along with a perky video instructor on her tablet, calling out corrections. "Higher, Jackie! Squeeze at the top! Feel it in your glute medius!"
Jack felt nothing but a burning strain in his hips and a deep, resonant embarrassment. The corset restricted his range of motion, making every kick and lift a struggle. The breast forms shifted uncomfortably with each movement.
"Good! Now, twenty donkey kicks each side. Really push your heel toward the ceiling!"
As he knelt on the mat, panting, his borrowed sweater damp with sweat, Jeannette placed a gentle, congratulatory hand on his lower back. "See? This is how we build the foundation. This is proactivity." Her hand lingered for a moment, patting the flat plane of his girdle-covered backside. "We'll get there."
Downstairs, the campaign continued. Marie blended a thick, beige smoothie that smelled of vanilla and something earthier, like raw nuts, she also added weight gain pills to it and blended it again. She poured it into a tall glass and handed it to Jack as he stumbled, aching, into the kitchen. "Here, honey. For muscle recovery. Lots of protein."
He drank it. It was cloying and left a chalky film on his tongue. Aunt Carol appeared from the guest bathroom, holding a small, elegant jar of rich cream. "And for your skin, after all that waxing. Super hydrating. Help it stay smooth." She scooped a generous amount and, before he could protest, began applying it to his shoulders and arms with firm, massaging strokes. The cream was cool and scentless.
He was too tired to question it. The smoothie, the workout, the cream—it all blurred into the new, exhausting normal. He dragged himself back upstairs, every muscle protesting.
In the bathroom, he went to wash the cream off his hands. Next to the sink, he saw the two unmarked white tubes Carol had left casually by his toothpaste, a sticky note on it simply reading "AM/PM." He picked it up, his heart thudding dully. He unscrewed the cap. Inside was a thick, clear gel, and the other were big unmarked white and pink pills. These pills were larger than the other pink ones, which were no longer there. Just these white and pink ones.
He squeezed a tiny dot onto his finger. It looked innocent. He thought of the pink pills, the constant, soft hum in his veins. This was different. This was direct. This was targeted.
He stared at the gel, its viscosity catching the light. This wasn’t a pill dissolving invisibly in his gut. This was a direct order to his skin, to the cells beneath. A command to change. His reflection in the medicine cabinet mirror, still flawlessly made-up, watched him with vacant, pretty eyes.
He heard laughter float up the stairs—Jeannette’s bright peal, Carol’s lower chuckle. It was the sound of a successful strategy session. His finger, still dotted with the clear substance, trembled. With a slow, deliberate motion, he smeared it onto his jawline, rubbing it in until it disappeared. The action felt like signing a contract in blood he hadn’t agreed to donate.
The routine calcified over the next week. His life became a schedule of enforced transformations. Every morning began with the chalky, dense smoothie his mother perfected, now with an extra scoop of something that left a metallic aftertaste. “For bone density, honey,” Marie would say, her smile warm and unwavering.
The unmarked white and pink pills replaced the smaller pink ones in the daily napkin ritual. They were harder to swallow, a physical resistance he had to wash down. Carol’s creams, now in multiple jars, followed his showers. She’d appear with a new one, her touch clinical. “This one’s for the hip area, to encourage softness,” she’d say, kneading the cream into his sides with a firm, proprietorial pressure.
The workouts with Jeannette intensified. His body, perpetually sore, began to develop new aches in unfamiliar places—a deep burn across his upper back, a trembling fatigue in his outer thighs. “That’s your glutes engaging!” Jeannette would cheer, as he strained through another set of banded squats, the corset digging mercilessly into his ribs with each descent.
One afternoon, standing exhausted in the shower, the hot water sluicing over him, his hands moved over his own body on autopilot. They slid over the rigid panels of the girdle, then up to the familiar, hated swell of the breast forms. His fingers traced the line where silicone met skin at his collarbone. Then they drifted lower, over his ribs, his stomach.
They paused at his hips. Something felt different. The sharp shelf of his hip bone, a landmark his whole life, seemed… blurred. The flesh beneath his skin felt softer, denser in a way that wasn’t muscle. It was a subtle shift, a rounding where there had been angle.
He shut off the water. He toweled dry with rough, anxious strokes and went straight to the full-length mirror, ignoring the face, focusing only on the profile. He turned slightly. He sucked in his stomach, making the corset strain. The change was minute, almost imperceptible. But he knew his own body. The hard, straight line from his waist to his thigh was gone, replaced by the faintest, slightest curve.
A cold nausea washed through him, unrelated to the workout. This wasn’t muscle. Muscle was firm, earned. This was something else being laid down, a biological surrender. The creams, the pills, the shakes—they were working. The campaign was gaining ground.
He pulled on his now-standard uniform of soft sweatpants and a baggy hoodie. Downstairs, the three women were in the kitchen. Jeannette was scrutinizing his meal plan on her tablet. Carol was reading the fine print on a bottle of something called “Soy Isoflavone Complex.” Marie was baking.
“Jackie! Perfect timing,” Jeannette said, not looking up. “I’m adjusting your calorie intake. We need a surplus for growth, but not so much it goes to your middle. It’s a precise science.”
“I think my hips are… fuller,” he said. The words felt thick and stupid in his mouth.
All three heads swiveled to look at him. The room went quiet except for the hum of the refrigerator. Carol’s eyes lit up with avaricious interest. Marie’s held a glimmer of concern, quickly masked. Jeannette’s were pure, unadulterated triumph.
“Already?” Jeannette breathed. She put the tablet down and crossed the room. “Let me see.” Her hands were on him before he could step back, pressing and palpating his hips through the soft fabric of his sweats. Her touch was assessing, not affectionate. “Turn around.”
He complied, stiffly. He felt her hands frame his lower back, then slide down to cup the back of his sweatpants, where the girdle still enforced its flat, artificial plane. “The girdle’s masking it,” she muttered, half to herself. “But I can feel it here, at the sides. The foundation is being poured.” She released him and clapped her hands together once, a sharp, happy sound. “I told you. Multi-pronged.”
“The creams and pills are clearly a quality product,” Carol said, nodding with satisfaction. She took a slow sip of her tea. “We should increase application to twice daily. Morning and night.”
“I’ll add more flax and walnuts and...." she paused as to not say what else she does. But she adds double the weight gain pillsto the smoothies. Marie added softly, turning back to her mixing bowl. “For healthy fats.”
Jack stood in the center of their planning, the subject of their excited debate. He was a living graph chart, showing promising early data. The initial shock of seeing the change was being drowned out by a heavier, more terrifying feeling: a numb sense of inevitability. They were building him, and the materials were his own flesh.
That night, the phantom buzz of the toy was a forgotten itch compared to this new, constant awareness of his own shifting anatomy. He lay in the dark, hands resting on the new softness at his hips. He tried to summon the old, sharp outline of himself in his mind, but the image was getting fuzzy. He wanted to release some stress so he brought out the toy and added plenty of lube to it this time.
He began to insert it and turn it on. He forced it fast and hard, but it wasn't the same as before.
He forced it fast and hard, but it wasn’t the same as before. The frantic motion felt hollow, a mechanical attempt to recapture a shock that had dulled into routine. His mind kept drifting to the softness at his hips, the persistent, low-grade ache in his glutes from the day’s workout, the way his sweatpants now caught on a curve that hadn't been there two weeks ago.
A sharp, rhythmic knock broke his concentration, followed immediately by the door swinging open. Jeannette stepped in, her eyes taking in the scene with a swift, unsurprised glance. He froze, the toy still humming against him, hidden under the blanket but not discreetly.
“Whoa, okay,” she said softly, closing the door behind her and leaning against it. She wasn’t shocked. She looked thoughtful. “I was just coming to check if you’d done your evening cream application. But I see you’re… busy.”
Jack couldn’t speak. Humiliation burned through him, hot and complete. He fumbled to switch the toy off, the silence that followed somehow louder.
Jeannette walked over and sat on the end of his bed, the mattress dipping under her weight. She plucked a stray thread from his comforter. “You were going really fast and hard. I could hear the buzz from the hall. Have you even felt anything from it tonight? Or are you just trying to pound a feeling into yourself?”
He stared at the wall, his face on fire. Her clinical tone was worse than laughter.
“It’s not working like it used to, is it?” she asked, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “The first time was intense because it was new. Now your body’s adapting. You need a different approach.” She paused, then tilted her head. “Do you want some help?”
“What? No. God, no,” he choked out, pulling the blanket higher.
“Shhhh, shhh, shhh.” She made a gentle, placating sound, the one she’d used when he was a kid and had skinned his knee. “Let big sis help you out, okay? I’m not judging. We’re in this together, remember? The campaign.” She held out her hand, palm up, waiting. “Come on. You’re clearly frustrated. I can fix that.”
A wild, trapped feeling clawed in his chest. Every instinct screamed to refuse, to throw her out. But another part, the tired, chemical-heavy, reshaped part, was just so desperately frustrated. The campaign had already taken so much. What was one more surrender?
His hand moved as if detached, emerging from under the blanket to place the slick, still-warm toy in her waiting palm.
“Good,” she murmured. “Now, relax. The key is slowness. It’s not a race.” She shifted on the bed, her back against the footboard. “Just lie back.”
He did, his body rigid as a plank. The mattress shifted as she moved closer. Her fingers, cool and sure, found their way beneath the blanket. He flinched when they brushed the girdle’s opening, the silicone already slick with lube.
“Shhh,” she whispered again, her breath near his ear. “Relax. It’s just me.”
Her touch was nothing like his own frantic fumbling. It was methodical, patient. She applied more lube, the cold a shock that made his stomach clench. Then she guided the toy, pressing the tip against the entrance. She pushed slowly, inch by deliberate inch, until it was fully seated inside the hollow cavity. The fullness was immediate, a deep, stretching pressure.
She pulled it out, just as slowly. The drag was excruciating, a tease that made his nerves sing. “Now close your eyes,” she instructed, her voice a soft command in the dark.
He squeezed his eyes shut, blocking out the sight of his copper hair against the pillow, the familiar ceiling of his own room. Darkness amplified every other sense. He felt the slow, rhythmic push and pull she established, a steady, maddening tide.
“Good,” she murmured. The bed creaked softly with her slight movements. “Now, as I slowly move this, I want you to imagine… big, strong hands pinning you to the bed. You can’t move. You’re held down. And a strong man… is entering you.”
The words landed like physical blows. Jack’s eyes flew open in the dark, a protest forming in his dry throat. He wasn’t gay. The idea was absurd, a foreign country he’d never had any desire to visit. Was he? The denial was automatic, a reflex from a lifetime of assumptions about himself.
But the second the image formed—vague, shadowy, but undeniably masculine—a circuit closed in his traitorous body. The deep, muffled stimulation from the toy, her whispered narrative, the chemical fog saturating his system—it all coalesced into a white-hot wire of sensation. A faint, choked moan escaped his lips before he could cage it.
He slapped a hand over his mouth, horror flooding through him. The rhythm didn’t stop. If anything, Jeannette’s movements became more deliberate, more knowing.
“See?” she said, her voice holding a smile he could hear. “It’s just a different kind of physics. Leverage. Pressure. Biology doesn’t care about stories, Jackie. It just responds.”
She continued, the toy moving in that same relentless, slow rhythm. The imagined hands felt real now, a weight on his wrists, on his hips. His own hands, the ones covering his mouth, felt weak and small. The moan he’d stifled vibrated in his chest, threatening to break out again. His back arched, a silent plea for more, for less, for it to never end and to stop immediately.
Every pull was an erosion, a scrape against the last firm walls of who he thought he was. He was disappearing into the sensation, into the story she was telling with her hands. The climax, when it tore through him, was a silent, shuddering collapse. It had no sound, just a series of violent tremors that left him gasping into his own palm, tears of shame and relief leaking from the corners of his tightly shut eyes.
The movement stopped. He felt the toy being carefully withdrawn. The blanket settled.
For a long moment, there was only the sound of his ragged, hitching breath fighting the corset. The phantom weight of the imagined man faded, leaving only the real, aching emptiness and the profound, unsettling quiet.
He heard the soft click of the toy being switched off. The bed shifted as Jeannette stood up.
“Don’t forget your cream, and pills” she said softly, her voice now completely normal, as if they’d just discussed the weather. “The targeted one, for your hips and thighs. It’s on your dresser.”
He couldn’t look at her. He kept his eyes shut, his hand still pressed over his mouth. He heard his door open, then close with a gentle, final sound.
He lay there for what felt like hours, paralyzed. The aftermath wasn’t the hollow quiet of before. It was a radioactive stillness, buzzing with a new and terrible knowledge. His body, softened by pills, shaped by creams, and now rewired by her hands and his own complicity, felt like occupied territory.
Eventually, he pushed himself up. He moved to the dresser, his legs unsteady. The jar of targeted cream and pills sat there, innocent and accusing. Next to them was a solvent. Just enough for the girdle or the breast forms. He chose the girdle.