Chapter 4: The Girls: Shopping for Clothes

My sister was not one to sit on her heels. At four o’clock the next afternoon she, Brianna and Caitlyn were sitting on our living room couch. All three had legal pads dangling on their knees and a pen in hand. Two measuring tapes sat on the coffee table before them. On top of about twenty men’s fashion magazines. All three had serious, ‘I’m all business’ looks on their faces.

Kevin’s and my mom were hovering in the background. Meanwhile he and I were standing uncomfortably in front of them. We were both starting to regret our plan.

“We’ll have to get your measurements first,” my sister announced to the room. “Take off your shirts,” she ordered.

“Our shirts?” Kev asked. Ashley ignored him as she handed Brianna one of the tape measures and Caitlyn the other. A minute later, two shirtless eighteen year olds were standing embarrassed in front of the eyes of five women. We were both slouching.

“Stand up straight, chest out, stomach in, shoulders back,” my sister ordered. She was not to be trifled with.

“They’re not that bad,” Caitlyn suddenly announced from her seat on the couch. Both Kev and I looked up. “Their bodies, I mean.”

“Have you guys been working out?” Bri demanded as she put the tape around my chest.

“Kevin bought some weights two months ago,” Mrs. White chirped in from the back. “He and Will have been down in our basement just about every afternoon.”

“Ma,” Kev complained. We’d never really told anyone when we’d started our transformation. I was still thin but I had gained six pounds since we’d started.

“Forty-one inches, that’s not so bad,” Bri said as she lowered the tape down from my chest until it was around my waist. “And look, Will’s even got biceps.”

“So does Kevin,” Caitlyn echoed.

For the next ten minutes Kevin and I were subjected to continuous poking and prodding while five females kept up a running commentary on the state of our bodies. In a way it wasn’t much fun. But in another it was pretty darn exciting. It was the closest the two of us had been to members of the opposite sex in our lives. My cock actually woke up and looked around.

And surprisingly to Kev and I, the consensus when it was all over seemed to be that we were much better than expected.

Caitlyn then took a series of pictures. “We need them for reference purposes, when we’re checking the fashion magazines, the internet sites,” Ash instructed before I could raise a protest.

We were then dismissed, told that the five of them were going to spend the next two or three days preparing a shopping list. It was obvious to both of us that all the women were enjoying the process – a chance to spend twenty or thirty thousand on a shopping spree, even if it wasn’t on themselves, was clearly going to be the highlight of their year.

Later, alone in my room, Kevin said, “They didn’t seem to think us that bad. Do you think they were putting us on?”

“Maybe we’re not as bad as we thought we were,” I answered. First mom had given me a compliment, now Ashley and her friends had, I thought to myself. It made me feel good. I didn’t know it then but I do now - no matter how good a plan you have, if you don’t get positive feedback you’ll never effect change. Mom and Ash’s words were as important as the clothes we were going to buy.

“You know Kev, I think your mom was checking me out.”

“Bullshit,” my best pal answered.

We had been instructed to be ready at ten a.m. on the dot on the following Saturday morning. We were. Surprisingly, Mr. White offered himself as our chauffeur. “I just gotta see this,” he said with a smile as he jumped behind the wheel of his wife’s Mercedes SUV.

We weren’t led to K-Mart. Or Target. Or even J.C. Penny’s. Frankly I would have happy in any of those places. But not the girls! Nor the mothers. They had assumed responsibility for the finished product and none of them were prepared to accept anything less than producing the best dressed college freshman of the class of 2011. It had become their mission. All five of the women had pages of notes and cutouts from every male fashion magazine ever produced. They were in shoppers heaven.

From a short term standpoint it turned into one of the worst days of my life. Fifteen different stores. At least. A hundred trips to the dressing room. Clothes that looked perfectly good to my eyes rejected ruthlessly. More changes. Endless discussions about stripes versus solids, checks versus who knows what, wool versus cashmere versus linen. Who knew?