This is chapter one of a story I am working on. There is more to the story than just braces. For now, there is only one chapter, but I do plan on adding more in the future which is why it is chapter one

Chapter one fits the rules for posting here. Future chapters may not, but they will be added to TheArchive and D-Art as they are written. For now, enjoy the story and comment on it to let me know what you think. Polite comments are always appreciated, even if it is to tell me it isn't your type of story.



Little Black Dress

By Metalmouth64


Chapter 1

Any time a woman goes out shopping, she always has finding that perfect ‘little black dress’ in the back of her mind. From the time we are old enough to dress ourselves, finding that perfect dress is always the goal of any shopping trip, even if all we are doing is buying groceries. It might be ‘the’ dress for a birthday party, picture day at school, the school dance, and as we get older, going to the bar, and the Christmas party at work. Eventually it becomes finding the perfect dress to wear to a friend's or relative's wedding…, and the list goes on.

I’m a little different. I’ve been dreaming of creating the perfect ‘little red dress’ since I was five years old. Black is a nice colour, but I’ve always felt red is better. Red shows off the curves, or lack thereof, a female has much better than black, and using different shades can really highlight the curves she wants to show off.

Unfortunately, I just don’t have the curves to fit into a dress the way I want to. I’m barely five feet, five inches tall in my orthopedic shoes and most of that is my flat-chested body. The reason I wear orthopedic shoes is because I am one of the rare people who had an adverse reaction to the polio vaccine and got sick as a child. It only affected my legs fortunately, and I can walk short distances when I wear my leg braces and use crutches. Most of the time I use a wheelchair to get around when I’m not at home. Getting sick at such a young age really affected the development of my legs and they didn’t grow to normal length. I have pretty good muscle definition in my legs, it’s just that they don’t have the strength to support me. I’ve had quite a few women tell me they wished their legs looked as good as mine.

My body from my thighs up looks normal, just flat-chested. My hips are the perfect size to wear a skirt, curving into a slim waist and flaring out again at my chest to give me an hourglass figure, just without the right amount of upper-body mass to fill a dress.

My interest in dresses started when I was young. I couldn’t do many of the things the kids in the neighbourhood could and I spent plenty of time around the house, which is how I became interested in clothing, more specifically female clothing. For generations, my family has been involved in the clothing industry in one way or another. Both my grandmothers are seamstresses and taught my mother everything they know. There was a constant stream of women coming to our place to have dresses made and altered, and they brought their daughters along, sometimes to have dresses made for them too.

Frequently, the daughters ended up playing in the corner with me while their mothers were busy at the other end of the room. I grew up around computers and whenever one of the machines had an issue with one of the programs running it, I was the first person they asked to fix it. It also meant I had to know how to run the machines and the best way to test it is to sew something with it. It didn’t take the women long to realize I had a talent for sewing.

The younger girls always had dolls with them, and I used my computer to design dresses for their dolls. There were always cloth scraps lying around and I used the discarded scraps to make dresses for the dolls while I was testing the machines, rather than just throwing the material away. My grandmothers told me, “If you are going to learn to sew, you might as well learn how to do it the right way,” and they taught me everything they knew.

As my skills grew, they had me sewing increasingly more complicated parts of the dresses they were working on, until I was doing most of the work myself, under their supervision. By the time I was in high school, I was designing dresses and sewing dresses from those designs, which created an interesting situation for me. Most of my designs were for females in my age group, though I did do some for slightly older women on request.

For me to fit the dresses right, I had to have the females try them on, and there were quite a few seams only partially stitched for the first few fittings. Being in a wheelchair meant I had to do things a bit differently, namely using a circular platform to raise and lower my chair so I could be at the right height to adjust the dress I was working on. Using the platform meant I was frequently at eye level with the more interesting parts of the burgeoning and blossoming female anatomy.

Polio messed with my hormone system and the estrogen to testosterone balance was off, and I went through puberty near the end of when all the girls around me went through theirs. My upper body developed the way most females did, becoming slimmer around the waist and wider in the chest, though I didn't get the same upper-body tissue growth the girls did. The shape of my face changed too, becoming softer with more defined cheekbones, and my wisdom teeth decided to shift with them.

Unfortunately, my legs didn’t benefit much from the growth spurt the rest of my body did. All I ended up with was a new set of shiny metal leg braces and better-fitting shoes to go with them.

Every time I designed a dress, I learnt a little bit more about getting the dresses to fit a wide range of body types and took the best elements to create what I considered the perfect dress for my body. What started as one dress became two and eventually became a whole closet full of dresses for any occasion I might encounter. They stayed as designs on my computer because I knew I would never have a chance to wear any of them.

During my last year of high school, I spent my evenings and weekends working on dresses for most of the girls in our town. By then, I had a bit of an attitude about my designs and I figured I should have a logo like the famous designers did. Under the left arm of all the dresses I created, I embroidered my name, "DanI", in thread one shade lighter than the material. I had a waiting list of parents wanting me to design dresses for their daughters, and some of them were willing to add an incentive above what I was charging, to move up on the list, which is how I ended up with braces. One of the orthodontists in town made me an offer I would have been a fool to pass up. Free braces and complete treatment at no cost to me if his daughter moved to the top of the list, and it included having my wisdom teeth extracted.

The day after his daughter had her first meeting with me, my wisdom teeth came out. By the time the design for her dress was finished, my mouth was ready for the braces to go on. My reputation as a designer far outdid my appearance, and most people didn’t look beyond the leg braces, wheelchair and crutches to see the person using them.

It became apparent the day I went to have my braces put on and the assistant addressed me as Miss Dani. It probably didn’t help that I had my naturally wavy shoulder-length hair in a ponytail. The jeggings I wore underneath my leg braces and the built-up soles on my orthopedic shoes likely added to her impression of me. The jeggings were more comfortable to wear than oversized jeans and kept my leg braces from rubbing against my skin and creating sores, and it wasn’t as if I could completely hide my leg braces, so I made them a part of how I dressed.

I felt my legs looked better in tight jeans even if they were quite short, and that is where the built-up soles on my orthopedic shoes helped. Thick-soled shoes were popular with the kids at school, especially the girls, and even if I didn't blend in with the rest of the students, my short legs looked longer with the thick-soled orthopedic shoes on them.

The long T-shirt didn’t help either. With the jeggings hugging my legs and the t-shirt ending about mid-thigh just where the thigh bands of my leg braces were, it could be mistaken for a short dress. I knew how I looked dressed this way, but I didn’t think I looked particularly feminine.

I’d used my wheelchair for the first two appointments and it had been time-consuming to transfer in and out of the chair for the X-rays and scans of my jaws, and transferring from the wheelchair to the examination chair was easier using my crutches. For the appointment to get my braces on, I left the chair at home and used my crutches instead.

I followed her down the hall to the room they were using to install my braces and she lowered the chair so it was easy for me to get into. “Get yourself comfortable while I let the doctor know you are ready, Miss Dani.” Part of me was thrilled because she assumed I was feminine and a little bit of me was insulted. I’d been dealing with people not being able to see me instead of the limitations I had to deal with and it got to me sometimes. Some of my most dramatic personal dress designs happened when I felt frustrated. There wasn’t much I could do to change how I looked physically, but changing how I dressed was something I had a lot of control over.

Getting my teeth fixed was something I could do to change my physical appearance and getting it for free was even better. I was smiling as the doctor sat beside me and began prepping my teeth. The stuff they used to clean my teeth wasn’t exactly pleasant, but then they began placing the brackets and I would have been smiling more except the plastic thing holding my lips away from my teeth prevented it. Other than a bit of pressure as they placed each bracket and adjusted the position, it was a bit anticlimactic. My mind created a picture of what was going on in my mouth and it was most likely more exciting than what was actually happening. The most exciting part was when the bands went around my molars and they removed the thing holding the lips away from my teeth. I felt the metal brackets with my lips for the first time and the brackets felt so enormous and rough. They had me bite on a stick several times to get the bands in place and then they installed the archwires. The brackets still felt huge, but the wires running through them significantly reduced how rough they felt.

The doctor left to attend to another patient and the assistant handed me a ring with all the colours of ligatures available, asking me, “What colour do you want me to use? If you don’t mind me making a suggestion, I think a light pink would go well with your complexion.” I smiled at her words, and as my lip moved over the top brackets, I felt the archwire pop out. “Don’t try and talk yet. Pick a colour for your ligatures, and when I’m done, we can have a short chat if you want.”

I took my time looking through the ligatures and thinking about what she said. She had been closer to me than most people got and she thought I looked pretty. Maybe she hadn't used those words, but her implication was clear in the words she did use. Her suggestion of going with pink appealed to me, and the more I thought about it, the stronger the appeal became. The ring had a nice selection of pink shades, ranging from almost purple to nearly red and very pale to extremely bright, and my eyes kept being drawn to a stick of ligatures that seemed to change colour slightly depending on the angle I looked at them. From one angle the stick had a faint hint of purple to the base colour of pink and as I turned the stick, it changed to a hint of red.

The designer part of my mind flashed to one of my personal dress designs and I pictured how I would look in the dress with a braces-filled smile accented by those ligatures. I knew I would never have a chance to wear the dress, but just having the ligatures would be enough to bring a tiny portion of the fantasy to life. She smiled as I held up the stick and she said, "You are bold. I like your choice. They will look nice on those older-style brackets."

She handed me a mirror and I watched as she stretched the ligatures around the brackets, starting at the front. Her fingers gently brushed against my cheeks as she worked, moving my face so she could reach the teeth closer to the bands around my molars. With the last ligature in place, she asked me, “What do you think? Do you like how you look? With the right lipstick and a little makeup, your new braces would add to your beauty.”

I felt my face get warm and I saw myself blush in the mirror as I turned from side to side checking out my new look. It was more than just the braces or the ligatures that had changed my smile, it was how I saw myself in the mirror. With just my head showing in the mirror, I saw a pretty young woman starting on the journey of improving her smile.

The smile on my face as I turned to her was enough to show what I thought about how I looked. She returned my smile and said, “I know more about who you are than you think, Miss Dani. All the girls who come through here talk about your designs. You have more of a reputation than you are probably aware of. The girls who are fortunate to wear one of your dresses all talk about how much they enjoy going to ‘Miss Dani’s’ and watching as their dresses are made, without being creeped out by the people working on their dresses.”

Her smile gets bigger and she says, “I hope you don’t mind me saying this, but they haven’t taken the time to really get to know the person who is designing and making their dresses. I think they would be shocked to learn the person they are standing semi-clad in front of is a guy. If I had my wish fulfilled and could afford to have you design a dress for me, I would be thrilled to have a little black dress, and it wouldn’t bother me one bit that you are a guy who looks more feminine than I do.”

I felt a tear trickle down my cheek as I smiled at her. For the first time, someone other than my family saw beyond the limitations I had to the person I really was and saw more than just the person I wanted to be.

I agree a good start  as orthopaedic braces are a fetish of mine I like how this started

Okay, chapter 2.

I sat down this morning and had a few ideas I was going to make note of. Once I started writing them down, the words just kept coming and this is what happened. Enjoy.




Chapter 2

I left my appointment with her cell phone number and email address, and possibly a friend. She asked me to text her if I wanted to talk, and she assured me she would get back to me as soon as she could. I was used to having people around me at school, mainly the girls who wanted to be able to say they knew ‘Miss DanI’, and I had plenty of ‘public’ phone numbers, but most of those went to mailboxes with an ‘I’ll call you back later’ message. I had the same system for my business number, but I really did return people's calls and answered my phone when it rang if I wasn’t too busy.



I'd asked the orthodontist to let me meet with his daughter alone so I could find out what kind of dress she wanted. After listening to her list of 'demands' and looking through the stack of clippings she brought with her, I was honest with him and told him I couldn't give her the dress she demanded to have. Designing a dress to her demands was very possible and I showed him a concept drawing of her ideal dress, then I put up a picture of what she would look like wearing it. Even though I had used a few tricks to make it look as if she had some form of a figure, she still looked like a lumpy pumpkin. After telling him I usually politely declined to design clothes I wasn't willing to put my name on, I brought up a couple of designs I felt he might be satisfied with, and added fifty percent to the price of the dress. I couldn't do anything about her looking like a lumpy pumpkin, but I could do something about making her lumps look like they were in the right places and minimizing some of the others.

I felt a little ashamed about waiting until after the braces were installed to inform him about the dress, and I was surprised by his reaction. He looked sad as he said, “I’m sorry for putting you in this position. I’ve always had a hard time saying no to my daughter and she looks the way she does because of me, at least partially. She said she had to have one of your dresses to wear when she graduated and I felt I had to do whatever I could to make it happen. I won’t go back on my offer of free braces and treatment. It isn’t fair of me to expect you to make her dress, especially with the reputation you have as a young designer.”

My thoughts turned to how I looked and the way people didn’t look beyond my limitations to see me, and then I thought about the dresses I had designed for myself that I would never get a chance to wear. My lips slid over the brackets on my teeth as I smiled. “Let me see what I can do. I can’t promise anything, but I have a few ideas I would like to try. If you can get her to try to lose a little weight, I may be able to at least give her some form of feminine shape. She won’t look glamorous, but she might be able to say she is wearing one of my designs.” I gave him a half-hearted smile. “Who knows, maybe I will develop a market for a different segment of the local population. I do know what it feels like to be different from the people around me.”

Rather than looking at what I couldn’t do for her, I scrapped the designs I had and started to work on designs to make use of what I could do for her. I started to think outside the lines and turned things inside out.

I also thought about my attitude and the way I treated people. The first person I contacted was the orthodontist’s assistant and arranged to meet with her just to talk. She responded much faster than I expected and was thrilled she could come to my shop and talk with me away from the office. The reason I wanted her to come to my shop was because I had a request and a surprise for her.

The request was very simple, I wanted her to prod her boss to get his daughter to lose weight. The surprise was a bit more complicated to make happen without her finding out what I was doing. Her comment about wishing she could afford to have one of my dresses sparked an idea and I asked her to bring a swimsuit so I could show her the steps I went through to create one of my designs. What I didn’t tell her was that I was going to design a dress for her.



She was right on time, and I gave her a tour of my shop while I calmed down enough to talk to her about getting her boss to help his daughter lose weight. I also was nervous about asking her to let me take pictures of her wearing a swimsuit, especially when I saw what she brought to wear. It would be the first time I would be going through the design process with someone who definitely knew my true gender.

She took the matter out of my hands. “So, Miss Dani, can you show me where to get changed? It isn’t every day I get to model for a famous designer. Just being here is more than I ever dreamed could happen.” It didn’t take her long to get changed, and I was still getting set up when she stepped out of the changing room in her bikini. Her clothing wasn’t all she’d changed. Her eyes had some colour around them and she’d added lipstick, making them stand out more.

She didn't have the body of a model and she knew it. What she did have was the confidence to show her body the way it was and maximize the good parts. "What do you think Miss Dani? Not too bad for a woman in her middleish-thirties." I had her pose in the standard position I preferred for the design program to use and took a few pictures, then she shifted her pose a little and said, "Don't stop yet. This is probably the only time I will have a famous designer take my picture and I want to make the most of it." I took a few more pictures and then she changed her pose and I took a few more. She seemed to be enjoying what she was doing and she made me feel comfortable taking pictures of her. Her poses weren't sexy or provocative, she was just showing her body the way it was.

As the computer screen filled with pictures, she said, "Would you mind if I tried something else?" I nodded and she disappeared into the changing room again, and returned wearing a pair of high heels. "I've always wondered what I would look like dressed this way, but I've never had the courage to try it. I can see why the girls like coming here when you make dresses for them, I feel comfortable around you." She giggled as she looked around, "It's too bad you don't have a pole, it would be fun to dance around one."

I smiled, and my lips slid over my braces. I pointed to the platform I used when I was working on dresses. “Stand there and don’t move until I say so.” I waited until she was standing in the middle and pressed the buttons hanging on the side of my shop chair. The platform slowly rose and I said, “Okay, you can move now.” I had music softly playing in the background and she began dancing to the song playing. It wasn’t a dance tune, but it didn’t matter, her body still moved to the rhythm of the music. I changed the setting on my digital camera to video and recorded her as she danced.

She had a level of confidence I envied as she danced through a couple of songs, and then she said, "Thank you for letting me indulge my fantasies. If I had your looks, I think I might have danced for a living." Then she saw the video as it replayed on the screen and blushed. "At least I know what I look like when I dance now. I think I better get changed before I embarrass myself any more."

With everything we had been doing, there was one thing I still needed to do before she changed out of her bikini. “Stay where you are. I need to take a few measurements for the design program.” The ring on the outside of the platform lowered so I could roll onto it, and my hands shook a little as I began taking her leg measurements.

She giggled and said, "Relax. Just pretend I'm a rich lady paying you a ridiculous amount of money to create a dress for me to squeeze my out-of-shape body into." Her expression changed and she said, "It's been a long time since I've had anyone want to touch me, even if it is just to take my measurements."

I moved my chair a little closer to her and raised the platform so we were face to face. “I know I go through the same procedure every time I design a dress, but this time is different. You know I am male and you look beyond the limitations I have to the person I desire to be. You aren't here because of my reputation as a famous designer who you are paying to create a dress for you. It would be so much easier if you were here for that, because I wouldn’t have to deal with my feelings then.”

She brushed her fingers against my cheek and said, “I am having so much fun here today. Never, in my wildest dreams, did I ever hope to be in the studio of the famous ‘Miss Dani’, and yet, here I am. You’ve given me the opportunity to live out a few of my fantasies, and I want to do something for you. Close your eyes and don’t open them until I tell you to.” Her heels clicked on the floor as she walked away from me, and got louder as she returned. I felt her fingers rub stuff on my face, followed by brushes applying makeup. “Pucker your lips… now rub them together.” It felt strange to have the unfamiliar coating on my lips. She lowered the platform and pushed my chair across the room. “Okay, open your eyes. I want to introduce you to someone.”

I panicked for an instant until I realized we were still alone. She had positioned me in front of the full-length mirror, and the person looking back at me was the female version of myself. She laughed at my reaction and said, “Let me introduce you to Miss Dani as I think she can be.” She hadn’t done much, just added a hint of colour to my cheeks, making them stand out more, and some eyeshadow. The biggest transformation was to my lips. She’d chosen a colour to bring out the shade of pink my ligatures were, and my braces were on full display as I smiled.

I felt tears begin to form in the corners of my eyes as I said, “Thank you. Is this really how you see me?”

She gently dabbed at my eyes with a scrap of cloth. "Don't mess up your makeup. I want you to enjoy what I have done for a while yet. Now, show me the pictures you took of me." We slowly went through them all, giggling like school girls as we did, her as the girl she used to be, and me as the girl I wanted to be. Before she left, I gave her a USB drive with the video and all her pictures, except for one file I hadn't let her see.



After putting the finishing touches on a few dresses, I shifted my priorities to working on the design for the orthodontist and his daughter. Expecting her to lose weight was unreasonable, in my opinion, and I concentrated on working with what she already looked like. The options for changing her shape were limited, so I started with a strapless corset and built the design around it. The lacing on the back and the heavy metal hook and eye fasteners on the front were integral to the design and I wanted her to be able to adjust the dress to fit if she did lose weight. As the design progressed, it took on a vaguely gothic look, reminiscent of the dresses from the Middle Ages, with plenty of ruffles around her hips and thighs and puffy sleeves, exposing her shoulders. The design was a complete departure from what I usually created, and I wasn’t sure if it was a good idea to put her in such a flamboyant dress.

I had one other project to work on, and this one was a dress for myself. Becky told me I could text her any time I wanted to talk, and that she wouldn’t call me unless I wanted to talk. Every time I sent her a text, she responded right away and told me how much it meant to her when I wanted to talk with her. She also offered to take me out if I wanted to go out in the evening.

The designs for both of the dresses were ready for my next orthodontic appointment. I arrived early and used my crutches and leg braces instead of the wheelchair. When Becky saw me in the waiting room, she took me back early and we had a chance to talk before my appointment. She laughed as I showed her the dress I had designed for the orthodontist's daughter and said, “I didn’t think you were her fairy godmother. Does she turn back into a pumpkin at midnight?”

I didn’t have a chance to show her the second dress before my appointment. Getting the braces on had been an easy appointment and they had used very soft archwires, so I only had tender teeth for a couple of days.

Becky told me to be prepared for a more difficult time after my second appointment and to come prepared by taking a pain reliever beforehand. She removed my ligatures and slipped the archwires out, and the ordeal began. I watched as the orthodontist began putting small bends and twists in the heavy square archwires as he test-fitted them in my mouth. Even before the ligatures went on, I knew it was going to be a rough few days. With the last bend in place, he left Becky to secure the archwires with ligatures.

Before she started, she asked me, "Did you take anything yet? Are you ready to start?" After I nodded, she stroked my thigh between the struts of my leg brace. "Okay girl, close your eyes until I'm done." We'd discussed what colour I wanted my ligatures to be and I had told her I wanted her to surprise me. The pressure began to build as the ligatures went on and she paused a few times to let me close my mouth and run my tongue over my teeth. It didn't help to relieve the pressure, but I found I felt better after doing it. Each time I did, she had a grin on her face.

With the last ligature in place and my mouth rinsed to freshen it up, she said, “Okay girl, let’s go show my boss the design for his daughter's dress.”

He had tears in his eyes when he saw the dress I had designed for her. The program on my laptop displayed how she could look in the dress I had designed for her and I could rotate it so he could see the dress from all angles. I had cheated a little and taken a few pounds off her waist, but the rest was still her. “If you can make my daughter look this good in a dress, you won’t have to worry about your kid's braces either. When my friends see her graduation pictures, you aren’t going to have to look for clients, they’ll be bribing you to make dresses for their daughters. Don’t be surprised if the women are after you too.”

“I know it’s too little too late, but I’ve told my daughter she has to come to the gym with me and exercise. I’m going to miss having junk food around the house, but I’m determined to get my daughter and myself into better shape. I still can’t say no to my daughter, but I am finding ways to deflect her demands, at least for now.”

He was getting ready to walk me to the front to make my next appointment, but I asked if I could use his office to talk to Becky for a few minutes. I put the design for the dress I had created for myself on the screen, and she gasped as she saw herself in it. I had used the pictures from when she was dancing on the platform and every curve of her body was on display. I hadn’t needed to make her look better, I thought she looked fine just as she was.

I had a big smile on my face as she turned to me and said, “Is that really how you see me? I didn’t think I looked like that, even after seeing the other pictures you took of me. I could look at this for the rest of the day, but I think we should arrange your next appointment so you can get out of here.”

With all the excitement of showing the orthodontist the design for his daughter's dress, and then showing her the second design, I hadn’t taken the time to see what colour Becky had used for my ligatures. I realized what had happened when I took my laptop out of my backpack at home and a tube of lipstick rolled out. I rolled over to the mirror and smiled, and my ligatures perfectly matched the colour of the lipstick. I leaned closer to the mirror and carefully tried to apply a coat to my lips, then decided I would have to get Becky to give me lessons on how to apply makeup properly.

Once again, I sat down to make notes of the ideas I had for the story. Things didn't work out the way I planned and another chapter was written.



Chapter 3

The first couple of dress fittings were a disaster. She spent the entire time complaining about everything, and I had a difficult time tuning her out. Surprisingly, the dress wasn’t one of the things she complained about though she didn’t have anything nice to say about it either. At the top of her list were being hungry and not being able to find anything to eat at home. Then it was having her keys taken away and her dad cutting up her credit cards because she ordered two large pizzas, and four litres of pop and had them delivered late at night after her dad went to bed. The list of things included quite a few items indirectly connected to her weight, and I had a difficult time stopping myself from telling her she was a spoiled brat and that she was causing the problems she was complaining about.

I had a hard time suppressing my smile when she complained about her dad forcing her to go to the gym with him and making her exercise along with him. Phrases like ‘beached whale’, ‘walking like a penguin’ and ‘lumbering like a hippo’ kept popping into my mind. It didn’t help that she wore yoga pants and crop tops to the fittings, and I couldn’t get the images of her in the one-piece bathing suit from our first design meeting out of my mind. I knew it wasn’t fair of me to judge her based on her looks, but she didn’t make it easy with her whiny, snivelling attitude.

Finding a corset in her size was difficult and the colour choices were limited. The idea was to make it into a dress and not look like a piece of lingerie, so white, creme and beige wouldn’t work. Black was a possibility, with blue being my preferred colour. The first fitting was just getting her into the corsets and adjusting them so I knew where to start with adapting them into a dress. Having a second corset to work with gave me a backup option in case I ran into major problems with the first one.

Becky became the person I turned to when I needed someone to vent my frustration on. She suggested I text ‘Lady Rebecca’ when I needed to get rid of some stress, and she explained the name was from how I made her feel like a lady when she saw the design I made of her in the dress. Every time I texted ‘Lady Rebecca’ I was to think of what I had done to make her happy, and she would know she could do something to repay me for doing the design.

She also wore down my resistance to going out in the evening. I finally let her take me out for a meal, and it wasn’t to any place I would have ever thought of going. Before we went in, she asked if she could do my lipstick for me, and after protesting I was a guy and her assuring me nobody would notice, she added a light shade of pink to complement the ligatures for my braces. My smile got bigger when I saw how just a touch of colour even I couldn’t see on my lips made my braces stand out. I really enjoyed the evening at the art gallery, part of it was because I was with her and part of it was because I felt just a little bit closer to being the way I wanted to look. Who knew a little lipstick could you that? As she dropped me off at my place, I told her we could go out for an evening together again sometime.



The only time she called me first was when she was at work and she was calling to remind me I had an appointment coming up. We always talked for a while and she always had little stories to tell me about things that happened around her, some of them at work and sometimes things she saw around the building. She was always interested in the progress I was making on the dresses I was putting together for her boss's daughter. Having two corsets to work with turned out to make things easier than trying to concentrate on only one. I tried out ideas on the black corset first to see if they would work, and then made the necessary changes on the medium-blue corset to get the finished look I wanted.

I didn’t really notice the changes happening to my teeth. I brushed them regularly and did everything I was supposed to, checking to make sure they were spotless. The changes were very gradual and they just looked the same to me all the time. Other than changing the configuration of the elastics, the orthodontist didn’t seem to be doing much. I still had the same archwires and there seemed to be more bends than when he started.

Becky and I went to more unusual places to eat, and she seemed to know the staff everywhere we went. Sometimes she knew a few of the customers as well, and she introduced me as her friend Dani, to everyone she knew. She didn't dress fancy, just a nice dress, heels and jewelry or a pantsuit and heels, feminine but not overly so. I became more comfortable wearing makeup, and my look slowly changed to bring out the feminine features I had to work with, slightly bolder lipstick and a hint of colour around my eyes and on my cheeks. She taught me how to apply makeup as she worked on my face and encouraged me to practice doing it myself, until I developed an acceptable level of skill.

How I dressed also changed. She took me shopping for an assortment of leggings, long shirts and a skirt, something I told her I didn’t need and would never wear. She also convinced me to do something I had never done before, we left my leg braces at home and went shopping for shoes for both of us. It took her a while to convince me to buy a pair of ankle boots with a half-inch heel and just as long to get me to wear them when we went out to eat.

At first, it was just restaurants we went to, and then I began to notice she was taking me to places that had events happening too, like the ballet, opera and philharmonic orchestra, all places it never occurred to me to go. Sometimes she suggested I use my wheelchair and other times it was my crutches, each time her suggestion was a good one, allowing me to get around comfortably.

Wherever we went, we always had a table where we could see most of what was going on in the restaurant and still have privacy where people couldn't see us easily. If something was going on, such as the ballet or opera, she seemed to be able to get us box seats just for us, to use for as long as we wanted, and she never had me having to deal with being in a crowd. It became normal for us to slip into the box after the event started and leave before it finished and everyone left. Every time I asked her how much I owed her for taking me to all those places, she told me to stop asking because I was doing her a favour by going with her.



The dresses for the orthodontist's daughter slowly came together and her attitude changed slightly as they did. Instead of complaining all the time, she began to have a more positive attitude. I noticed I had to adjust the laces on both of the corsets to get them to fit properly. The tricks I used to give her more of a shape were working, and paradoxically, making her hips, thighs and shoulders look wider made her waist and body look thinner and gave her a more feminine shape.

Her dresses weren’t the only ones I worked on. I had plenty of other customers to take care of, and I had two special projects I wanted finished in time for my graduation. I asked Becky to my graduation ceremony and the dinner afterwards, and I asked her if she would do my makeup. Becky had a lot to do with my decision to let my desired self out into the open a little. My family already knew what I planned to do and were okay with it.

Becky asked if I had a set of legbraces I could wear regular shoes with, and was disappointed when I didn’t, then was excited when I said I had an old pair of leg braces I didn’t use anymore and hadn’t disposed of yet. She was excited when I told her she could take them if she wanted. One of the special projects was my graduation dress and she was thrilled when she had a chance to help me finish it off. I told her I wanted to walk across the stage just like the rest of my classmates and she was thrilled with the idea and wanted to be there to support me if I needed her.

Becky was there the day I had the final fitting of the orthodontist's daughter's dresses. All I had to do was tighten the laces a bit to get them to fit her reduced waistline. It surprised me when she asked me to come to her graduation ceremony and her father echoed her request, with tears in his eyes. Becky stood behind them and nodded her agreement, with a big smile on her face.



On the day of my graduation, Becky came over early to help me get ready. She came to my door with a big box tied with a ribbon and bow. I wasn’t allowed to open it right away and had to wait until she had done my makeup. She had me sit in front of the mirror as she transformed my face so I could watch ‘Miss Dani’ appear and she had to blot the tears forming in the corners of my eyes occasionally. Before I put on my dress, she let me open the box and had the tissues ready as I began to cry. Inside the box were my old leg braces with a pair of thick-soled half-inch heeled ankle boots attached and skin-toned stirruped leggings to wear underneath my dress. She had me practice walking in them before I put my dress on, and she touched up my makeup where it had been smudged.

Walking in the heels was easier than either of us expected. She had me stand on the platform, then turned up the music a little and said, “Dance for me girl, I know you want to.” I couldn’t do more than sway to the music and shuffle around a little on my crutches, but the pictures she took with her phone captured everything I did, and for the first time, I got to see how she saw me rather than just what I thought I looked like in the mirror. With the boots on my feet, my lower legs looked almost normal below the hem of my knee-length dress. The black boots and shiny metal leg braces went well with the rest of my dress, and even though I was still flat-chested, the female I desired to be was on full display.



I didn’t exactly walk across the stage to get my diploma, but it was a close facsimile. Plenty of cameras flashed as I moved across the stage using my forearm crutches, and I managed to hold back the tears until Becky took me into her arms.

We had plenty of time to go back to my place, and I had a chance to surprise her with the second dress I had been working on. Without having her around to try on the dress while I was sewing it, I placed a few hidden panels to allow the dress to adjust to fit her figure. It was an off-the-shoulder design with hidden support so she could wear it braless and display a modest amount of cleavage, and the slits in the side would flash glimpses of her legs as she walked.

Her dress had my new ‘Miss Dani’ logo embroidered on the left side underneath the arm and it had the number one in a circle underneath it. The embroidery was still subtle though the logo was more visible than on the dresses I had created before. When she saw the dress and I said it was hers as a gift, she cried. Then she laughed as I explained I was numbering all my dresses, and maybe someday her dress would be worth something because it was the first dress ‘Miss Dani’ had made and she could prove it.

I switched to my wheelchair for the graduation dinner, and my dress looked just as good in the chair as it did crutching across the stage, and she convinced me to leave the leg braces at home and wear the pair of platform high-heeled ankle boots she had brought with her. They fit my feet perfectly and had hidden support in the ankles where I needed it. After the dinner, she got me onto the dance floor in my wheelchair and we danced to a couple of the slower songs. It didn't matter to me that the other people were watching us, I wouldn't see most of them again and I didn't care what they thought about me. I was finally being who I wanted to be.



Becky and I watched as the orthodontist’s daughter walked across the stage in the black dress I created for her. All the time spent exercising paid off and she didn’t look like a lumpy pumpkin. After the ceremony, he had quite a few parents asking who the designer was, and ‘Miss Dani’ was mentioned every time. He respected my request not to be pointed out, instead handing them one of the business cards I gave him.



Summer gave me more time to work on dress designs and build up a bank account for the fall. It also meant the start of phase two of my orthodontic treatment. Becky advised me to forgo the lipstick and take something to dull the discomfort of having expanders screwed into my mouth and she asked me to wear the leg braces with the boots, the skin-tone leggings and the skirt I had never worn. I hadn’t fully understood what I was in for even after Becky showed me pictures of the top expander and explained what they were going to do.

The feeling of not being fully dressed wouldn’t go away as I took the bus to my appointment. Despite having worn a dress to my graduation, wearing a short skirt still was strange to me. The fabric of the skirt seemed to billow around me as I crutched along, and when I sat, the fabric covered everything above my lower thighs, including the thigh bands of my legbraces.

Becky smiled when she saw what I was wearing when she came to take me to the treatment chair. “I didn’t think you would wear the skirt. I’m glad you did. You look very nice in it and the heels add just the right touch of feminine appeal to the outfit.”

I sort of smiled and replied, “I feel naked. Everyone can see my legs and it looks as if I don’t have anything on them. How do women handle it?”

She laughed, and I saw metal bands around her molars. “Some women enjoy showing off their legs and often dress to show them off. Others do it because it is expected of them or because they are trying to get the attention they think they need. You think wearing heels makes you look more feminine, don’t you?”

I had to agree with her. How I thought of myself was partially influenced by how I thought other people saw me. Wearing makeup, heels and the dress to my graduation had felt so nice, and the braces had added a confidence I hadn’t felt before. I was taking small steps to change how I looked to the people around me and it influenced how I felt about myself. I still didn’t feel like I was ‘Miss Dani’ yet, but my latest appointment was another step in the process.



There were big changes to my mouth. Several of the brackets were removed and replaced by the bands the expanders fit into. Becky gave me a mirror so I could watch as they worked in my mouth. My upper palate was numbed so I wouldn’t feel the screws going into it to hold the upper expander in place. The lower expander wasn’t as visible, running along the inside of my teeth. I was distracted by all the hardware going into my mouth and almost missed Becky saying something about a more feminine arch as she pointed to my file on the screen. He nodded as she changed some of the notes in my file, and he pulled a different set of archwires out of the cabinet behind him.

They gave me a chance to relax my jaws before they continued working on my braces, and the orthodontist left us alone to check on some other patients. I was glad for the chance to get a good look at the new hardware in my mouth and run my tongue over everything. My mouth felt so different and there didn’t seem to be much room left for my tongue. Becky laughed at the expressions I made as I looked at the revised me in the mirror. The bands around her molar came into view again and I asked about them.

“Meet me after work and I’ll tell you all about them. They’re new and I have you to blame for them being there. I have a few things to tell you and I don’t want to do it here. Promise me you won’t get mad when you hear what I have to say.”

The orthodontist came back before I had a chance to reply, and my new archwires went into place. When he had me check if any places felt sharp, I asked about the protrusions on some of the bands and he said they were for another part of my treatment, but that he had done enough for one appointment and to get used to what I had before he added more.

After booking my next appointment, I told Becky to give me a call when she got off work and we would meet to talk.

Chapter 5

My phone rang a few days later and the guy on the other end said he was calling from a place I had heard of but never dreamt I could possibly afford to go to. He asked if I had some time to talk and would like to make me an offer. An anonymous person had contacted him personally and told him to contact me and offer me one year of tuition at the school with on-campus housing if I wanted it and a monthly stipend for food. He didn’t know who the person was other than it was someone very interested in the future dress designs I might be induced to work on. The way he said it implied it might be someone who was trying to get their daughter moved up on my list. The 'Limited Time Offer' just made it feel more like a bribe.

I asked him if I could have time to think about his offer and let him know I would like to attend the school, but wanted to get some advice first. Becky responded to my ‘Lady Rebecca, urgent’ text within minutes and said, “We need to meet right away and talk about this.”

She sent me a text with her address and the message, “You shouldn’t have a problem finding my place, it is in the same building as the orthodontist’s office. Just take the elevator to the top floor, and wear your boots. I want to be able to catch you if you run away before I have a chance to explain everything.”

She was waiting for me in front of the only door on the floor when the elevator doors opened. “Make yourself comfortable in the living room. What can I get you to drink? This is going to take a while and we are going to be doing a lot of talking.”

My heels didn’t make a sound in the thick carpet as I crutched into the largest living room I had ever seen. As soon as I sat on the chaise, I knew I was in trouble. There was no way I was going to be able to get up in a hurry. All of my furniture had firm padding to make it easy for me to transfer to my wheelchair, and her furniture was definitely not firm.

Her braces glimmered in the light coming from the floor-to-ceiling windows as she said, “Okay Miss Dani, tell me what is bothering you so much it warranted an urgent ‘Lady Rebecca’ message.”

I let all my frustrations out, telling her about the phone call and how I had the feeling someone was trying to bribe me to move their daughter up the list. The more I said, the bigger her smile got, and the more of her braces I could see.

She let me get everything out before she said, "Sit back and breathe. I have a lot of explaining to do and I hope you won't get mad at me." She started at the beginning, when she first met me. One of the girls in the waiting room had asked her 'if she knew who the girl in the wheelchair was and told her it was 'Miss Dani', the famous dress designer." Becky had connections most people didn’t have access to and had already done some research into who I was and knew I wasn’t quite what people assumed I was. She smiled as she said, “I was upset with my cousin for bribing you the way he did to get his daughter a dress. It impressed me how you kept your part of the deal after you met her and then made her two dresses. You have had a significant impact on her life. She is still hard to put up with, but she is working on it. She’s also dragging her father to the gym now and forcing him to eat better.”

Becky went on to explain how getting to dance on the platform had affected her self-esteem and how having the dress for my graduation dinner had boosted her confidence level greatly. All of the trips to Gala events were something she had never been able to do because she felt she didn’t fit in with all the people there and it all started with how she was treated at the private schools she went to. She kept all her feelings and desires suppressed, and it affected how she interacted with the students there. Having me go to the events with her was me doing her a favour, not the other way around. She finally felt as if she was beginning to fit in.

Her smile faded as she said, “This is the part you're not going to like. I’m the one who told the lawyer to make the tuition offer. It wasn’t meant to be a test to see if you would take a bribe, it just seems to have turned out that way. I’m glad you came to me so I can tell you this myself. The time limit on the offer is so I can make all the arrangements for your education before school starts in the fall, not because I am trying to pressure you into accepting it.”

She wanted me to go to school to take courses in business management so I could run my shop for myself. I wouldn't have time to do much designing with the courses she wanted me to take, and then she made another offer. "You are going to be at one of the top fashion design schools in the world. I will pay for a second year at the school so you can learn from the best, if you want to go. You already have a reputation in the fashion industry that extends beyond this place. I can help you become much more than who you are right now. You can become the 'Miss Dani' you have always wanted to be in your fantasies."



I called the man back and accepted the offer. In the fall, 'Miss Dani' crutched into her first class of the year wearing a corset and stockings under one of her dress designs with her head up and flat chest proudly forward on two-inch heels fastened to her legbraces. The only curve to my chest was created by the small foam pads I used to fill out the cups of the corset. I introduced myself to the people around me with just a slight lisp from the hardware clearly visible in my mouth. I still wasn't the person I wanted to be, but 'Lady Rebecca' was giving me the tools to get closer to who she felt I could be. She told me, "Don't lose sight of who you are now as you become who you will be, because you have changed so many lives already just as you are."


The End… for now