… of course it wasn’t five minutes, more like ten… but how would I have known? I didn’t have a watch and there wasn’t a clock in the porch.
It was so cold in that porch. I had nothing to dry myself with so the rivulets of rainwater running down my nude body drew even more heat from me until my teeth were chattering. It seemed like my whole body was covered in goose-bumps and because it was so cold my penis had shrivelled up as well. I couldn’t have felt more miserable if I had tried.
But of course I could feel more miserable! All I had to do was look at the window in front of me and see my reflection, knowing that I couldn’t see outside into the darkness and wondering if there was anyone outside looking in at me. It was horrid!
I hadn’t a clue how long I’d been stuck out in the porch. It felt like I’d been standing there for hours when finally I heard the click of the front door opening. I turned to see Emily standing in the doorway with a big towel. It looked so welcoming!
I hardly cared when Emily turned me to face the window. It was a tight squeeze in the porch so I was almost pushed against the glass, but I didn’t mind so much now that I knew I’d soon been in the warmth of the house. Emily started to dry me, just like she does… Oh no! I realise that I’ve now got to tell you… this is so embarrassing… Emily is in charge of my bathtime… and she makes sure I’m properly dry afterwards… which means… yes, she dries me after my bath… dries me just like a little boy. And that is precisely what she did in the porch.
When I was dry, I naturally expected Emily to give me the big bath-towel to wrap around myself. No, not Emily!
“Don’t be silly Scottie,” she said, “Don’t be silly… this towel’s damp now. You’ll catch your death if you use that…”
“But, please, Emily,” I pleaded, “… please I’ve got to have something…”
“Here, you can have this to put on…”
I looked at the small hand towel Emily gave me. I was too stunned to speak. Emily had stripped me bare of my wet clothes. I had been kept waiting, nude and dripping wet, in the cold porch. I had been towelled dry by her in full view of anyone who happened to be walking past our house. And now Emily had just given me a hand towel that measured maybe 24 x 7 inches to wear. Wear! Try as I might I couldn’t make the towel stay up round my waist. Only by holding onto the ends could I keep it in place.
“… that will have to do for now. You can wear it while you have your tea.”
“Wear it!” I screamed to myself, “Wear it! How can I ‘wear’ a towel that doesn’t even go all the way around my waist?!”
But that was that. No discussion.
I followed Emily through into the hallway simply relieved and pleased to be in the house, dry and warm. Okay, all I had to ‘wear’ was a small hand towel, but I was warm and dry. That was enough… That was enough for about two seconds, until the door-bell rang…
“Be a good boy and see who that is, Scottie,” Emily called over her shoulder, “I’ve got to go and see about your tea…”
“But, Emily… I haven’t got any clothes on… please, Emily, I can’t open the door with nothing on… can’t Rosie go?”
“Don’t be silly, Rosie’s upstairs… you’ve got your towel to wear… now go and answer the door Scottie.”
I looked at Emily’s back and then at the door. The bell rang again and Emily gave me one of her ‘looks’. She may well have been three years younger than me, but Emily could look at me in such a way as to make me feel like I was a ten year old.
“I won’t tell you again Scottie…”
That was enough. I gripped the little towel around my waist and just about succeeded in covering my ‘boy-bits’. I went back out into the porch again to the outside door. Unfortunately for me opening the door involved using both hands, one to turn the Yale lock and the other to turn the door-handle.
You guessed… I stood and clutched the towel to myself with one hand and tried to open the door with the other hand… unsuccessfully. Try as I might it was impossible to open the door without using both hands. I couldn’t see who it was at the door as the light was still on in the porch. But whoever was outside could see me on the other side of the glass frantically trying to open the door without letting slip the little towel, my only piece of ‘clothing’.
The bell rang again. This time it was clear that whoever it was was getting impatient. I looked back over my shoulder, through the front door and into the warmth. I looked upwards and swore at the injustice. Why mum ever wanted me to have a baby-sitter was way beyond me.
I lifted up my other hand and tried to balance the towel on my thigh by lifting up my knee, but it slipped off onto the floor. I was now bare-nude again. As quickly as I possibly could, and hopefully before our visitor could see, I unlocked the door, pulled it open and dived for the towel at my feet. When I looked up again my heart sank.
“About time too!”
It was Miss Hartland, one of mum’s friends who seemed to go out of her way to find fault with me. Miss Hartland in my youthful eyes appeared to be an ogre of about seventy who wore her hair in a tight bun and was a lady who, while having all the time in the world for girls, made no attempt to hide her loathing of little boys. Little boys of course meant little boys in short trousers. So despite the fact that I was the oldest, the fact that I’d been reduced to short trousers by my baby-sitter Emily, I was looked upon by Miss Hartland as one of the lowest of the low… a little boy.
And now she fixed me with her withering eye as I struggled to hold the towel between my legs and to close the door behind her at the same time: “What, if I may ask, are you doing running around with no clothes on…?”
I didn’t have chance to say anything before Miss Hartland turned and saw Emily in the hallway.
“Is there a reason for Scott to be running around with no clothes on? Is he playing a game? Or does he always get undressed when he gets home from school?” She sighed and looked at me distastefully as if I had just crawled out from under a stone. “Boys… silly boys…” as if that answered her own questions.
Emily looked at me and laughed: “I had to undress Scottie, Miss Hartland. You see he didn’t take his mackintosh to school this morning, so by the time Rosie and I got back to the house Scottie was soaking wet…”
“Stupid boy,” Miss Hartland said, oblivious to my feelings, “What on earth possessed him to stand outside in the rain and get wet? And fancy refusing to wear his mackintosh to school… I don’t know what goes through his mind sometimes… nothing at all it would seem…”
Emily made no attempt to correct Miss Hartland’s erroneous assumptions. I didn’t stand outside in the rain deliberately… I haven’t got a key to the house! I wouldn’t have got so wet had Emily and Rosie not taken so long to come home! And who would listen if I told them… it wasn’t raining this morning! It was fine and sunny… I wasn’t allowed to take my mackintosh to school when it was sunny!
“Scottie was so very wet… all his clothes were soaked through,” Emily explained to Miss Hartland, “He would have been dripping water everywhere if I’d let him come straight in… There was really only one thing I could do… I had to take all his clothes off and towel him dry before I could let him into the house. I’m afraid, what with one thing and another, I haven’t had time to sort him out some dry clothes. I was going to do that after his tea…”
“Typical boy! As if we haven’t got better things to do than go around cleaning up after them. Why couldn’t he go and get his own clothes…? I expect he thinks everyone’s there to wait on him hand and foot. If he was mine I’d send him up to his room without any tea!” was Miss Harland’s response.
Although I did get my tea I didn’t get my clothes. I sat at the table with the little towel balanced precariously across my lap and feeling very self-conscious. But that was the way I always felt these days. It’s difficult not to feel self-conscious when you’ve been put back into short trousers, believe me!
As I sat there at the table with Rosie on one side of me, Emily on the other and Miss Hartland, who’d decided to say for a cup of tea, sitting opposite, I couldn’t help reflecting, as I often did, on the injustice of it all.
Miss Hartland turned towards Emily and asked a her two questions. Two simple questions the answers to which explained how I felt as I sat at the tea-table:
“Emily, exactly how old is Scott now…?”
She didn’t ask me, I noticed…
Emily glanced at me before she answered: “Sixteen… and a half, isn’t it Scottie?”
Emily knew exactly how to embarrass me by ensuring my complicity in her answer.
I couldn't bring myself to look at either of them directly as I agreed: “Yes… yes, Emily”
Miss Hartland looked down her nose at me. My tea was turning to ashes in my mouth as she then asked: “And, pray... what class is Scott in at school?”
Needless to say she again asked Emily, as if I didn’t know or couldn’t be trusted to give the correct answers.
“Scottie’s repeating his 3rd Year, aren’t you Scottie?”
“Yes, Emily,” I answered with my head bowed in shame.
“Let me get this right, Emily. You’re telling me that Scottie is 16 ½ years old and he’s still in the 3rd Year…”
Emily then went through the whole story once more for the benefit of Miss Hartland…
It all started when I was demoted a year at school. Then the following year I was ‘held back’ and had to repeat that year, which means that I have been stuck for two years in the same school year, while my contemporaries are in the 6th Form, I’m still a lowly 3rd Former.
My demotion came at the end of my 4th Year. Looking back it shouldn’t have come as a surprise when my mum was asked to go and see the Head. He must have told her how bad my academic performance had been that year, so bad that he strongly advised my mum that not only should I not be allowed to enter the 5th Form, but that I should be put back into the 3rd Form when I started school again after the summer holidays. Of course, she agreed with Head’s advice and I had to face summer holidays with the knowledge that in a few weeks time I’d be sat in a classroom full of 13 year old boys, two years my juniors. Well, I thought, it can’t be all that bad can it? After all I’d be getting a second attempt at subjects I was already familiar with (even though I’d obviously failed miserably at), so I wouldn’t have to try that hard surely? Trouble is, it was this attitude that got me into trouble in the first place…
Anyway, as it turned out that was the least of my worries. Mum was understandably very annoyed (for that read ‘incensed’) with yours truly and decided that I couldn’t be trusted to tie my own shoelaces, never mind fend for myself and Rosie when she was not around. So a couple of disasters later, which I won’t go into, mum decided ‘something must be done’.
It was only two weeks away from the new term when Emily entered my life. From the start mum made it quite clear that it was Emily who was in charge in her absence. And Emily made herself so useful that it seemed that anything Emily suggested became ‘a good idea’ and should be acted upon without delay.
So from being someone who mum could trust to keep an eye on me and Rosie, Emily virtually three years my junior was suddenly my baby-sitter. Note: my baby-sitter. As Rosie and Emily were closer in age, they became more like sisters to one another.
Then Emily had an idea. Unbeknownst to me Emily told mum that as I had been demoted to the 3rd Form at school, didn’t she think it would also make sense for me to be demoted in some other way, so that people seeing me would know that I was no longer a senior boy?
Mum might have looked puzzled, but I’m sure she would have understood Emily’s point… I had let myself and my family down. I was in disgrace, but how would anyone know that I was?
I had to be made an example of what happens when boys don’t pull their socks up. It must have been at that precise moment that mum realised the only boys that you could possibly see who didn’t pull their socks up were boys who wore short trousers! So the only way that I could be seen to pull my socks up was if… I was put back into short trousers for school!!
At the same time Emily, with a certain cunning that belied her age, suggested that maybe I should undergo a form of uniform demotion. I can almost see mum’s face as the penny dropped. Without another word it was agreed I was to be put back into short trousers. And who was put in charge of putting me back into short trousers? Why, Emily of course!
Emily was invested with complete authority to take me to the School Outfitters and have me measured for what turned out to be thigh-baringly short, short school trousers. After further prompting from Emily mum gave her control over the rest of my wardrobe and I soon found myself without a single pair of ‘longs’ to my name!
Now remember I was already 15 years old as I prepared to be demoted to the 3rd Form, so you can probably imagine how I felt to be taken to the School Outfitters by a girl who was about to enter her own 3rd Year. A girl who had complete authority to order me a new school uniform. A girl into whose care I had been entrusted by mum. I had been told in no uncertain terms that Emily was there to look after me, since I could not be trusted to look after myself.
I realise now that Emily knew that once she had me back into short trousers I would be easier to manage. She knew the psychological importance boys attach to the wearing of ‘longs’. To wear long trousers is the mark of a ‘big boy’, a boy who is clearly on his way to manhood. To have worn long trousers and to be put back into short trousers is such a traumatic experience for a boy that Emily must have known that once she had me dressed in them at all times, she would have me under perfect control. And of course the more mum saw of the beneficial effects of putting me back into short trousers the more readily she agreed to Emily’s suggestions. This was the chain of events in which I became enmeshed and the reason I told you right at the beginning that “… it’s too late now… far to late…”
I would ask you to imagine what it was like for me to be escorted to the School Outfitters by Emily, still in complete ignorance of what was about to befall me. As we stepped through the door into the old-fashioned store, Emily went forward to the elderly lady who managed the shop. I wasn’t too keen on being in this place and so hung back looking at the rails of various school uniforms, the glass-topped cabinets containing other items of official school uniforms. White vests and schoolboy underpants, of which I smiled smugly at the memory… thankful I’d never have to wear those again! I didn’t pay much attention to what Emily and the lady were saying and wondered off to look at a cabinet which contained a variety of school caps. Only junior boys wore school caps these days. You’d never see an older boy bother with a school cap. There were other cabinets with P.E. uniforms and various sports kits. School ties, of course, and next to those I saw pairs of long grey school socks with different school colours in bands around the top where the sock would be turned over on the boy’s leg. Again I smiled at the thought that I used to wear long school socks a couple of years ago… thankfully never again! How stupid I was not to see what was coming.
Emily had been talking to the lady manager for a little while and I wondered what they were discussing and why it was taking so long. I turned and saw a serious look on the lady’s face as she nodded and listened to Emily. I couldn’t hear what Emily was saying as she had her back to me. Then whatever she said made the lady look up at me, look me up and down, then look back at Emily.
“I’m sure we can accommodate you, but are you absolutely sure?” she said, then raised her eyebrows in response to the next thing Emily said. The lady looked at me once more, this time at my trousers. “Well, that might be difficult, but we can certainly order some for you… however, we do of course keep the full range of sizes in stock, so we can find something suitable for him in the meantime…”
I started to feel a little uneasy. What were they talking about. Surely we were just here to buy some new trousers? Why else had I been told to put on my school uniform? I distinctly heard mum saying something about a new pair of trousers to Emily before we left. “… and he’ll need some socks…” I heard her say. But the way Emily and the lady were talking was making me think there might be something more to this trip to the School Outfitters than I first thought…
The lady walked towards me. She was obviously used to dealing with recalcitrant schoolboys and as she hustled me into the fitting-room and told me in a crisp, no-nonsense manner to “… remove your trousers…”, I didn’t know what else to do other than to comply, so I bent over and took off my black school shoes and then rather nervously undid the clasp and zip fly of my school trousers. Once my trousers, my long trousers, were off, I capitulated completely. Within the space of a few seconds the lady had pulled up my shirt at the front and announced that my underpants were “… quite unsuitable…”. Unsuitable for what? I thought.
I heard Emily outside the fitting-room asking what was wrong with my underpants, although I’m sure she knew and just wanted me to feel even more embarrassed than I already was.
“For a start, they are not school regulation white,” the lady began, “… he would not pass a proper uniform inspection wearing them. And if you want my personal opinion I think it’s a disgrace to wear them with any sort of school uniform… quite unsuitable…”
“Perhaps I should buy him some new ones?” Emily suggested. I noted her use of the first person. Ominous.
“I most certainly would… and besides they won’t fit with his new school trousers…” the lady replied, leaving me to wonder what she meant by wouldn’t fit my new trousers?
Oh my god!! Her fingers were already at the elastic waistband of my underpants. I jerked backwards, but there was little space for me to escape in the small fitting-room. Before I knew it, the lady had unceremoniously yanked my underpants right down to my ankles.
Oh my god!! I caught sight of myself in the full-length mirror as the lady bent down to remove my underpants. My shirt-tails hardly covered anything! I could see my penis dangling pathetically below the hem.
The lady stood up and looked at the label inside my underpants to check the size as I stood and cringed with embarrassment.
“Stay there while I sort you out a pair of proper regulation school underpants,” she said and swept out of the fitting-room with not only my underpants, but my long grey school trousers as well!
Stay there! Was she mad! Of course I’d stay there… I wasn’t going to leave that fitting-room, not for all the tea in china!
I could hear the voices of Emily and the lady murmuring outside. They were clearly discussing something about my new trousers but I couldn’t make out what. Surely, I thought, it couldn’t be that difficult to sort me out another pair of school trousers… after all the lady had taken out the ones I’d been wearing. All she had to do was to find another pair the same as those in my size and find some proper school uniform underpants (though why I had to wear those was beyond me, as I still didn’t have a clue what was in store for me…).
“Well here we are,” the lady trilled as she brought something for Emily to look at, “They’re the best I can do in the circumstances, but I think you’ll agree they’ll be fine to be going on with. I know they’re not quite what you had in mind, but it will get him used to wearing them again… how long has it been since he last wore them…?”
“Oh,” Emily said brightly, “Let’s see… it must be two years now…”
Amazingly as I stood in the fitting-room without any trousers or underpants on, I still didn’t have a clue what they were on about!
“… and these are the school uniform underpants he’ll need to wear with them,” the lady told Emily, “If I hold them next to the underpants he’s been wearing, you’ll see that the correct regulation school underpants are cut much higher at the sides, so they’ll be suitable for wear with even the…”
I strained to catch what the lady said, but she must have turned her head away and the next thing I knew she had pulled open the curtain of the fitting-room and thrust a pair of boy’s white school uniform cotton underpants into my hands and to told me to hold onto them while she took off my socks.
Now I was even more confused. I didn’t understand why she wanted to take off my grey ankle socks. It just didn’t make sense, but I was afraid to ask… maybe I didn’t want to know the answer, but as it was I was to find out soon enough…
I was now completely bare below the hem of my grey school shirt and feeling very vulnerable. The lady took the new white school underpants from me, held then open at my feet and told me to step into them. Really, I felt like a little boy as she drew them up my smooth, bare legs. It was clear she was very used to helping boys on with their underpants as she expertly pulled them up over my bottom and holding the waistband out with her thumbs she slipped them over my exposed genitals. Then she looked at me and asked:
“Would you like to make yourself comfy?”
I must have looked like an idiot as I stared back at her. I didn’t know what she meant.
“Your new underpants… why don’t you make yourself comfy?”
The penny dropped and I blushed a deeper red than I thought possible. She meant me to put my hand down into the front of the underpants, take hold of my penis and testicles and ‘make myself comfy’… right there in front of her!
I caught sight of myself in the mirror again. I looked so stupid standing there in little boy school underpants. Gingerly I pushed my hand into the elastic waistband and pushed my penis and testicles into a more comfortable position, quickly took my hand out again and looked more closely at the new underpants. The lady had been quite right when she told Emily they were cut high at the sides. Whereas standard school underpants I’d seen in the glass-topped cases earlier were quite broad at the side between the waistband and the leg opening, the pair I was wearing can’t have been more than 1 ½ inches deep.
“There that’s better isn’t it?”
I felt so like a little boy: “Yes… thank you.”
“You look much a smarter boy in proper school underpants.”
I was fifteen for god’s sake! But do you know what I said? Do you know? I’ll tell you what I said: “Thank you… Thank you, miss… they feel nice…” I might just as well have added, Thank you for making me feel like a little junior schoolboy whose mummy has to put on his nice white school regulation cotton underpants every morning!
Then she turned and called out to Emily: “Would you pass through his new school trousers…?”
The curtain opened and instinctively I put both hands down to cover the new underpants. Emily looked at me and smiled: “Don’t be silly… Oh! you’re blushing, Scottie… really, there’s no need to be shy…”
Somehow I knew that telling me ‘not to be shy’ was meant to make me feel quite the opposite… and she succeeded. But that proved to be the least of my worries. The lady had asked Emily to bring in my new school trousers… but where were they? Then Emily held them up. My eyes popped out on stalks…
“… no… no… no… please, no… please Emily… please, no…NO!!”
Emily was holding a pair of very brief boy’s grey school short trousers. Short trousers. Short school trousers… Short school trousers for me to wear!!
