Mistress Z

It was no good.  No matter how often I added the figures up on my snazzy spreadsheet, there was no way I could make them more positive.  I was slowly but surely sinking into a morass of debt.

Poverty, or rather, a constant cash flow problem was the bane of all university students.  I had accepted this when I had accepted a place at one of the most prestigious universities in the country, but the reality of it was finally hitting me in the face.  Again, and again, and again.

What made it all the worse was that I was surrounded by other students who had been fortunate enough to be born into wealthy families.  They swanned around in designer clothes, drove around in posh cars and were out socialising every night.  I, born into a poor but honest family, had only my student grant to rely on.  And it simply wasn't enough.

My best friend, Emma, noticed my depressed mood.  Emma and I were both studying law, we had both come from less well to do families and had had to win scholarships to get into the schools to get the grades that entitled us to be here.  We had met at a fresher and we had clicked instantly.  Since my name was Emily and we spent almost all our spare time together, our classmates dubbed us collectively as the "Emms", though of late Emma had been oddly absent and was being evasive about where she had been and what she had been up to.

Emma sat down beside me and gave me a big friendly hug "What's up Emm?  You've been really down".  I twisted my laptop towards her to show her the breakdown of my disastrous finances "I don't know what to do Emm" I said, my tone one of despair "I'm trying not to spend money but I'm still broke!  And I still have to find money for textbooks and study materials.  Where's that going to come from?  There's nothing else for it, I'll have to get a part-time job.  Waitressing or bar work".

Emm shook her head slowly "You'd have to give up a lot of your time for being paid peanuts.  Not worth it, seriously".

I had to agree, but there was something that was bugging me.  Six weeks ago, Emma had been as skint as I was.  Since then, Emma was wearing designer clothes and had not only bought all the books on her reading list but had purchased some others that weren't.  She must have spent hundreds, if not thousands of pounds recently.  I turned to her and asked "How do you manage, Emm".

Emma seemed to have anticipated the question.  She looked around to check that no-one was within earshot and whispered "I got a job.  I only have to work twelve hours a week and the money is unbelievable.  The nature of the work is a bit unusual though".

I asked Emma to tell me more.  And she did.  In great detail.  It sounded like the ideal solution to my financial woes and, even better, Emma promised to put me in contact with her boss, a woman known only to Emma as Mistress X.

Three days later I got a frantic call from Emma "I've told Mistress X about you and she wants to see you right away!".  "Emm" I protested "I've a seminar in ten minutes!".  "Do you want the job or not?  Meet me at the the Student Bar.  Mistress X doesn't like to to kept waiting!"  Emma hung up.

Sighing, I trudged over to the Bar.  Emma was sat outside, in a gleaming red convertable "Hop in!" she said simply.  I had barely got in when Emm put her foot down and the car sped away.  She was driving like a maniac, swearing when she encountered red traffic signals and at other drivers.  Finally, the car screeched to a halt outside a nondescript office building.

Emma handed me a plastic card.  It was some sort of security pass "Swipe this at the door and key in 9153.  Then go up the stairway you see.  Mistress X will be there.  Good luck, Emm, see you later!".  The car sped off as soon as I had alighted and closed the door.  I did as Emma told me and found myself at the top of a dusty flight of stairs, standing outside an oak panelled solid door.  It had no markings on it whatsoever.

Nervous as hell, I knocked timidly on the door.  There was no sound from behind the door.  I rapped at the door more confidently and my efforts were rewarded by a woman's voice saying "Enter!".

I opened the door and let it swing wide.  I walked slowly into a large room with rich oak panelled walls, a burgundy coloured velvety carpet and exquisite furnishings.  The whole room radiated opulence and luxury and I immediately felt calmer.  Seated behind a large desk was a tiny, wizened woman in oriental dress and expensive looking jewellery.

The woman, who I guessed must be Mistress X, barely glanced at me.  In a cold tone, she ordered "Sit down".  There was a small chair opposite her own, noticeably lower and less comfortable than her own.  I took my place.  Despite the fact that Mistress X was far shorter than me, the lowness of my seat meant I had to look up at her.

Mistress X was studying a piece of paper intently.  Then, almost reluctantly, she set it down and forced herself to attend to me.  "You will speak only when I direct a question at you and you will answer my questions concisely and honestly.  Please be assured that I have researched your background thoroughly and that I am well versed in detecting untruths.  If I believe you to be less than honest with me, the interview will be terminated and you will leave this building immediately.  Do you understand?"

"Yes" I answered simply.  This woman had a terrifying air about her.  She made Cruella De Ville look like a sweet old lady.

"First, you will return to me the pass you were given to enter this building".  I meekly surrendered the card.

Mistress X then fired a load of questions about me, about my education, my outside activities, my sexual experiences, my family's genealogy.  It was very clear that she knew absolutely everything about my past.  Not that there was much to hide mind, my background was very ordinary.

Mistress X, who had been making notes and annotations as I answered, seemed satisfied with my responses. At any rate, I was not being asked to leave.  I wondered how well I was doing.

Mistress X pointed to a lacquered screen "You will go behind that screen and change into the clothes that you find there".  I went behind the screen to find a black lacy basque, a lace thong, silk black stockings, a pair of high heels in my size and an almost transparent black robe.  With some difficulty, as I had never wore lingerie like this before in my life, I got into the things and presented myself to Mistress X thus attired.  I felt pretty foolish and awkward.

Mistress X's gaze over my body was penetrating.  Finally, she said "You have an attractive, well toned body.  What you are wearing now will be your uniform and you will be required to wear it at all times whilst you are here.  I can see that you are not used to wearing such garments but you strike as a very bright and intelligent girl and it will soon become second nature to you".

Mistress X continued "Now I will explain to you what we do here.  This agency provides a very unique but valuable service to high profile clients.  Most of our client base are members of parliament, senior civil servants, high ranking military and police officers and we even have some Cabinet ministers.  These men, and they are all men, have certain preferences in how they like to relax when they are not running the country.  Some of them like, for example, to wear the uniform of a schoolgirl.  Others like different things.  But what they all like is to have a girl like you order them about and discipline them".

Mistress X looked at me to see my reaction.  It all sounded very creepy, but at the same time very exciting.  I was intrigued and so I made my face wear a neutral expression.

Mistress X continued "I should make it clear that there will be no sexual activity involved and that such physical contact that there is, is minimal and only employed where necessary.  You will find that our esteemed clients understand and respect this.  I should also make it clear that the financial rewards for providing this service are very high.  Now, do you have any questions to put to me?"

I had a few and Mistress X endeavoured to answer these fully and frankly.  Then, once I had changed back into my usual clothes, she dismissed me.  I asked if I had been "successful" and she told me merely to wait to hear from her further.  It was a disappointment.

Mistress X left me in limbo for a few days and I supposed that perhaps she had not been impressed by me.  Then an innocuous brown envelope arrived in the post.  Inside was a handwritten letter from Mistress X offering me the position.  I was to report, with Emma, the following day to start my training.

Emma was already aware of the news, and was thrilled.  But she told me frankly "We are going to have a make a few changes to your presentation.  Mistress X said you look too much like me".  This was true.  Emm and I were the same height and build and had the same hair colour.  Emm whisked me off to a beauty salon where I was fully depilated and my hair dyed the shade of copper.  I looked very different with my hair a different colour and styled differently to that of Emma.

The following day I reported for induction.  I had first to read and sign a thick contract that had been written by a better legal mind than my own.  It bound me to absolute secrecy about the clients I would be working with.  I shrugged.  This was not an unreasonable demand and so I signed.  I was then given my own passcard and code to enter the building and assigned my office, which was a smaller version of the one used by Mistress X and where I could change and shower.

Then my training began in earnest.  At first, I had to sit behind a secret chamber with a one way mirror and observe Emma with her clients.  Emma was Mistress Y, by the way, and my moniker was Mistress Z.  The routines were easy to pick up and after only a couple of days, I was confident enough to start with real clients.

You never forget your first client.  My first was an MP who must have been in his early fifties, fat, balding and dressed in a traditional pin striped suit.  He wanted to become a schoolgirl called Cynthia.  I made him strip and put on his gymslip and all the rest of it.  Oddly, despite his build and his age, the outfit actually suited him.  He did look a lot like many an overweight schoolgirl that I had known during my own school days, although the uniform was old fashioned and its wearer was too tall to pass.

Anyway, once Cynthia was properly dressed, I put her through her paces.  I made her write a short poem, which I marked and found fault with.  That earned her a hundred lines, which she had to write in five minutes. The time allowed was deliberately too short, but to her credit, Cynthia had managed eighty lines that were neat and correctly spelled.  But this didn't help her.  I ordered her to bend over and lower her knickers. I administered ten strokes of the cane on her bare buttocks, which Cynthia had to count.

Once the punishment was over, Cynthia had to kneel and beg me for forgiveness, which I condescended to give once Cynthia had kissed the cane.  After finishing her lines, Cynthia was dismissed and went away to changing facilities.  About a quarter of an hour later, the honourable member would be on his way to the House of Commons to go about his normal business.

That first client had been nerve racking for me but I was relieved to find that it was all absurdly easy.  Three more clients followed.  Being a schoolgirl was the most popular theme, but there were others.  Some of them liked to be transformed into sissy little girls, a confection of frills, lace and ribbons or submissive maids.  Female military or police uniforms were also popular, especially amongst high ranking generals or police officers.  There was a growing demand for secretarial outfits, the classic silk white blouse, pencil skirt and high heels.

The outcome was always the same.  The client would be made to put on their costume of choice and would invariably be punished, be it by a cane, a strap or a whip, by me.  I found the power I enjoyed over these men quite intoxicating.  I had been a mere schoolgirl myself only a few years earlier and now here I was wielding authority over VIP's, the men who actually ran the country.

I found it very odd that these powerful men should want to become very submissive schoolgirls or maids or other types of lowly females.  I reasoned that having to be a tough male politician or military officer was an impossible persona to maintain all of the time and that their feminine alter egos were a necessary way for them to let off steam.

I should say something about the costumes that were made available for our esteemed clients.  The schoolgirl, secretary and maid costumes were mostly procured from outfitters of such garments and were therefore authentic down to the tiniest detail and of the highest quality.  A client could elect to wear a crisp, new uniform, or a used one, depending on their preference.

Most of the other costumes, for sissy girls, sissy maids and babies, were hand made and stitched from delicate and expensive fabrics and had so many frills and flounces that it made even my feminine mind boggle that someone born to be male would wish to have the humiliation of wearing them.  Anyway, it was part of my role to select the clothing to be worn from our storage facilities and to arrange for the garments to be freshly laundered once they had been vacated by their wearer.  Invariably, they had to be dry-cleaned but as we had an arrangement with a company that supplied such a service the costs were relatively inexpensive.

With one exception, who I shall come to shortly, the esteemed clients were generally of the same category.  Middle-aged males of slightly different heights, weights and hairlines, all nicely docile and submissive once inserted into their feminine costumes.  They looked nothing like women or girls and could never pass as a female unless they underwent radical medical procedures, which of course they never would for it would mean the end of their careers.  They looked somewhat cute and feminine, but that was as far as it went.

Probably the most amusing one was the client I had who was a high ranking civil servant.  He was the most senior civil servant in his department, with power over the hundreds of other civil servants who worked there (mostly women, it should be pointed out).  He was a "Sir" and had had various orders and other decorations conferred upon him by the monarch over his career, but his greatest pleasure was to be dressed as his female secretary in the classic secretary outfit and then made to bend over for punishment.  He was well over six feet and broad with it, so it was quite a challenge to find the clothes and shoes for him (he took a size thirteen in shoes), but it was accomplished.  It was funny to see this tall, powerfully built man, who made me look tiny by comparison, tottering about in a tight skirt and high heels.

I must mention my most favourite client.  Let's call him Glen.  He is a very different client from the others.  For a start, he is considerably younger and more feminine in every way from the other clients.  He had just been elected as an MP and was considered to be something of a high-flier, possibly a future leader of his party.

Glen came from a wealthy family and was the youngest of three children. He was the only boy and his birth was greeted with great joy by his parents, who had wanted a boy so far had only two girls.  Even as recently as the seventies, a boy was still considered more valuable than a clutch of sisters.  The only person not happy with the fact that Glen was a boy was Glen himself.  As he emerged from baby and infant hood and realised, as we all do, that there was a great gender divide, Glen realised that he had ended up on the wrong side.  In his heart and soul, he wanted to be a girl.

To this end, he tried to include himself in the activities of his sisters as early as possible.  At first, his sisters obliged him, the elder girl dressing him in the flower girl costume she had worn at a cousin's wedding.  With his golden ringlets, slight figure and feminine features, Glen made a very presentable girl and wearing a dress felt so right to him.  But when his parents found out about it, they were very angry.  Glen and his sisters were punished - the girls confined to their room whilst Glen was spanked with a slipper and told in no uncertain terms that he was forbidden to wear female clothing in future.

Glen was unhappy.  His sisters were sympathetic, but could do nothing to help him.  Glen could not resist the urge to dress up and was caught wearing one of his sisters' dresses.

After this, Glen found himself packed off to the same all-boys boarding school that his father had attended. Glen was miserable there at first and wrote to his parents, begging them to let him come home.  He received a brief response which ran as follows "You need to become a man and persevere.  One day you will thank us for this".

Glen quickly gleaned that he would need to suppress his inclinations towards femininity if he was to survive in this exclusively male environment.  He was a bright, clever boy and took advantage of the much better than average education that was being offered.  He soon gained a reputation as a swot.  He was less successful on the sports field but acquitted himself well enough.

Just under half a mile away from the school was the St Agatha's School for Girls.  Whilst the other boys were fascinated by the budding female bodies that populated the school, Glen was tormented by the uniforms, though he never let on of course.  Glen's outlet from relentless study was the drama society which put on three Shakespeare plays a year.  Although Glen was a better actor than most of his peers, the lead male parts went to bigger, more masculine looking lads.  Girls from St Agatha's were brought in to fill the female parts and Glen envied them as they wore elaborate and embroidered dresses. Glen longed to fill the parts of Juliet, Portia or Cleopatra but was never to be allowed to do so.

Academically, Glen was successful, gaining top marks at school and going on to Cambridge University where he earned a first class honours degree.  He considered an acting career but decided to go into politics and proved to be very accomplished at it.  Of course, some years before, he had escaped from his parents so that he was at last free to indulge himself.

I gradually got all of this out of Glen over a fairly long period.  I felt desperately sad for him and so I was much kinder to him than to the other clients.  Glen liked best to be dressed as a sweet little girl, with lots of frills and lace, and he looked very feminine and adorable.  Over time, I persuaded him that he would look better and more sophisticated dressed as a woman of his own age and so he did agree. Glen made a very convincing and attractive woman and he was determined to dress that way out of the public gaze.

I was Mistress Z for just under two years.  The money I had earned was phenomenal.  In my last year at university, I was able to purchase a top of the range sports car and had the pleasure of seeing the jaws of my fellow students dropped as it roared into the campus.  I ate out in fancy restaurants and wore designer clothes.  I had built up a healthy deposit towards buying my own flat once I graduated.

But the decision to go was not mine.  Mistress X decided that new blood was needed to keep their offering fresh and exciting and so both Emma and I were dropped.  We were not altogether sorry.  We had our final exams to study for and interesting and fulfilling careers in law to look forward to, but we would miss the money - and the fun.