Mrs Bennet and the Body in the Library

By Susannah Donim

Previously Mike only had to put up with a little padding and makeup, but to become Mrs Bennet properly, something much more dramatic is needed.

Chapter Eight – A More Convincing Transformation

Bright and early the following Wednesday Holly picked me up and drove us to Transformations in a hire car. Once again I was reminded that I needed to make some money to keep pace with her. I could never have afforded to hire a car for a day.

“You really mustn’t be disappointed if – when – this doesn’t work out,” I said on the way. “To play Mrs Bennet in The Pride and Prejudice Experience, I would have to be completely convincing as a middle-aged woman when people are as close to me as you are now, and indoors, and in ordinary daylight. There’s no way they can do that.”

“Don’t worry,” she said. “I won’t ask you to go through with it unless you’re one hundred percent convincing. It would be embarrassing for both of us, and would only ruin the entire project. If you can't be Mrs Bennet, perhaps we can get you a job as a gardener, or something.”

“Thank you,” I said, with relief. “But I still can’t see what they can do. I am a man, after all.”

“I’m well aware of that!” she said with a grin. “However…” Ominous pause. “You must promise to be absolutely honest about this. If these people really can do what Sheila thinks they can, you have to accept your fate with good grace.”

I agreed, not expecting to have to worry about that.

We drove past the entrance to Transformations twice, once in each direction, before we realised the anonymous-looking entrance half-hidden within stands of tall trees led to the place we were seeking. There were no advertising signs or company logos anywhere, but when we turned into the drive, Holly was confident that the description of the outside of the main house matched the instructions she had been given over the telephone.

She parked in a Visitors spot outside and I tried to remind her one final time that this was in all probability going to be a wasted journey, and she should not be too disappointed.

“I get it. I get it!” she tutted. “Come on, we’re late.”

Inside, the building was quite different. There was a modern office entrance hall with a hospitality desk, behind which sat a very pretty receptionist.

“Welcome to Transformations,” she said. “I’m Angie. May I help you?”

“I hope so. This is Michelle,” Holly said, indicating me. “We have an appointment at nine-thirty.”

While Angie was checking her list, Holly turned back to me, knowing I was about to remonstrate with her for introducing me by the annoying feminine version of my name.

“They don’t want to know either of our real names,” she explained, “just the name you will be known by after your transformation.”

Well, I suppose that was reassuring. I didn’t want there to be any record of Mike Bradshaw being a client of these people.

“Your consultant will be with you shortly,” said Angie. “Would you like to take a seat for a moment?”

We sat down in some huge leather-bound armchairs to wait.

“The lady on the phone explained that they never ask their customers why they want to change their appearances,” said Holly. “If Transformations know that their client’s motives are dishonest, they would have to decline to help. That’s another reason why they prefer to operate through intermediaries and never ask for real names.”

“Then how on earth do they get paid?” I asked.

“Oh, they ask for a deposit by bank transfer up front, returnable if we’re not satisfied.”

I hadn’t even thought about the cost of this exercise. I hoped Holly hadn’t splashed out a lot of money.

“Then if the customer doesn’t pay the balance afterwards,” she continued, “they’re not too much out of pocket.”

“And no one has let us down so far,” said a stout lady in a smart grey skirt suit, who had materialised silently during our discussion. “I’m Ingrid MacLaughlin, your consultant for this morning. We spoke on the phone, I believe, Madam?”

She didn’t leave time for Holly to confirm or deny her assertion. “Would you like to follow me?”

Ingrid was tall and authoritative, even mannish. Her voice was deep for a woman but within the normal female range. She reminded me of my primary school headmistress, a forceful lady who had played hockey for England. I wondered whether Ingrid might be one of Transformations’ own creations, but there were no other indications of masculinity. If she was a man under the tweedy suit, frilly blouse, makeup and perfect coiffure, then she was very convincing indeed – which was worrying for my prospects of leaving here still male.

As we passed the Reception desk, Ingrid said, “Would you have some refreshments sent along to Vera’s room, please, Angie?”

She led us behind the desk and tapped at a keypad. A security door opened and we stepped through into a long, brightly-lit corridor. We stopped at the third room we came to. It looked like a doctor’s surgery. In the middle of the room there was a leather-covered examination table on castors. There was a workbench against one wall with various bottles and hairdressing implements on it, and a dressing table with a large mirror. Around the other walls were several glass-fronted cupboards containing vials of fluids. I wondered what role their contents might play in a client’s transformation, and whether they were taken orally or rubbed on.

Against the far wall there was a desk with several chairs around it. Another large lady in a white medical coat was seated and staring at a computer monitor. She stood up when she saw us and came over. She smiled and we shook hands.

“This is Vera,” Ingrid said. “She will be doing most of your transformation, once we have decided what you need.”

There was no need to introduce us of course. I was ‘Michelle’ and Holly was ‘Madam’. We all took seats around the desk.

“Now, my understanding is that Michelle will need to present herself as a middle-aged lady for approximately six weeks, during which time she will be continually meeting people in various domestic circumstances and lighting schemes, and with close contact. Is that right?”

“Exactly,” said Holly. “I think these pictures might help you to understand the circumstances better.”

She opened her phone and scrolled through to the Gallery. She handed it to Ingrid, who held it so that both she and Vera could see it. They were looking at the photos Holly had taken of me in costume on the day of the Dress Rehearsal.

“Oh, I see,” said Ingrid. “Would this have something to do with The Pride and Prejudice Experience?”

“Yes! How did you know that?”

“There are adverts for it all around here,” said Vera. “It sounds fantastic! We’re all going.”

“It’s at a place called Hadleigh House,” said Ingrid.

“That’s not far from here, just outside the village of Hadleigh,” added Vera. “We know… some people there.”

It sounded like she had been about to say more, but she stopped suddenly due to a stern look from Ingrid. Maybe someone in the Hadleigh area was a Transformations client?

“We performed a few scenes from Pride and Prejudice at our end of term show,” Holly continued. “Michelle was brilliant…”

I couldn’t let her get away with that. “You won the Best Actress prize,” I said.

I realised that was the first time I had spoken since we arrived. I could see Ingrid was thinking about my voice.

“…anyway, Dennis Vaughan, who’s running the Experience project invited us all to take part. He was particularly keen that Michelle should play Mrs Bennet, but…” Holly trailed off, not knowing quite how to continue.

“But he doesn’t know that Michelle isn’t a woman?” Ingrid said.

“Right, and it’s one thing to pass as a woman on stage for a few minutes, and with scripted lines, and in full makeup…”

“And quite another in the drawing room serving tea to guests and telling them about life in 1813. I see.” Ingrid was a sharp lady (and clearly another Austen fan). “Please don’t be concerned,” she continued. “We can be discreet. If Mr Vaughan has said he wants Michelle, an accomplished forty-something actress, then we will make sure that he has her, and you won’t be taking his money under false pretences.”

“These are great pictures,” said Vera. “I assume Mr Vaughan saw Michelle like this?”

“Ah yes,” said Holly, seeing her point immediately. “We will need her to have a very similar figure, and you can’t change her face too much.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem,” said Ingrid, looking at me carefully. “He doesn’t have pronounced masculine features.”

Great! Someone else who thinks I have a ‘baby face’. She probably thinks I’m ‘small and weedy and effeminate’ as well but is too polite to say so.

“By that I mean he has unexceptional, unlined features and an oval face, not long and thin,” she continued. “Also, he doesn’t have a big nose or a pronounced supraorbital ridge. We can attach a few facial prostheses to conceal his masculinity and bring out feminine features, without changing his overall image. Any discrepancies will be attributed to the exaggerations of stage makeup.”

Thus far she’d been talking to Holly exclusively, which I found a little annoying. Now she turned to me.

“How tall are you?” she asked.

“Five foot eight,” I said.

“You’re a little below the average height for a man. Tallish for a woman, but not conspicuously so. You’re slim, so we can easily pad you out to any shape we want.”

“He’s 38DD-33-40 in the pictures,” said Holly. “Your friend, Sheila, used a padded body shaper to do that. Is that what you’ll do?”

“I don’t think so actually,” said Ingrid. “According to the brochure for The Pride and Prejudice Experience, visitors will be able to see members of the cast getting dressed and undressed, showcasing the clothes people wore in Regency times. I’m sure you won’t have to appear totally nude, but I expect you will be seen ‘scantily clad’, shall we say?”

“So you will need realistic female flesh bulging out of your shift and corset,” said Vera, with a mischievous grin.

“Er, yes, exactly,” said Ingrid.

“Oh, that’s it!” I said, angrily. “I’m out!”

“Why?” said Holly. “No one will see you, or any of your real… private parts. Everything of yours will be concealed by fleshy padding and frilly underwear.”

It took the three of them a little while to persuade me to see it through, but in the end I ran out of viable excuses, as I always seemed to do with Holly when she had set her mind on something.

At that moment an elderly maid appeared with coffee and cookies. I calmed down a little and tucked in.

* * *

For the first stage of my transformation, I had to strip down to my underpants and put on a dressing gown (pink) and a pair of women’s slippers (also pink). Vera led me to a small dark room that turned out to be the facility’s photography booth. She waited outside while I had to stand on a little dais, drop the gown and my briefs, and stay still while cameras whizzed round me taking pictures from every angle. I put the gown on again and Vera took me back to her room. Ingrid and Holly were studying a 3D image of me, naked.

“Now we superimpose an image of a woman of his height with approximately 38DD-33-40 statistics. The computer then calculates the differences between the two figures and fabricates the prostheses he needs.”

“Wow!” Holly said. “This technology is amazing! What about his face?”

Ingrid pressed some more buttons. My face appeared on the screen – in high-definition, showing every little birthmark and blemish. Then it started revolving in 3D.

“Let’s put a wig on her first,” Ingrid said. She brought up a menu and clicked on one of the options that came up. A number of hairstyles appeared. She clicked on ‘medium-length with curls’ and chose a mousy brown colour. That hairstyle appeared on my head; that is, on the head of my image on the screen.

“This is close to the style of her wig in the pictures, isn’t it?”

“Identical, I’d say,” said Holly.

“Now with those new measurements, she should be plumper in the face. Sheila gave you a latex double chin, didn’t she?” I nodded. “This will do much the same.”

She punched some buttons and my face broadened significantly. My cheeks grew rounder and a double chin appeared.

“We have a standard package for feminising a male face.” She clicked on another menu. “The scale goes from zero to ten, but we can’t use the higher numbers, because Mr Vaughan already knows what you look like. ‘Ten’ would make you unrecognisable, for example.”

She selected ‘three’. The picture changed. It’s hard to describe exactly what happened, but the face – I could hardly call it my face anymore – had softened somehow. It was still me, but definitely a female version now.

“Finally, you’re supposed to be about twenty years older, aren’t you?”

More clicks and thin lines started appearing all over the image. The fat chin and cheeks sagged. Deep bags gathered under the eyes. The woman looked at least fifty now.

“I think that might be a little too much,” said Holly.

Ingrid studied the pictures on her phone. “You’re right,” she said. “I’ll dial it down a little.” The woman in the mirror slowly grew younger.

“That’s perfect,” said Holly. “She’s definitely middle-aged but still quite attractive. You can really make him look - just like that?”

“Oh yes,” said Ingrid. “I’ll send the instructions to the 3D printer. It will take about twenty minutes to print the prostheses. Vera will shave you and give you your waxing while we wait.”

She stood up. “Perhaps you’d like to come to my office, madam?” The two of them made their way to the door. “By the way, did you bring some clothes for Michelle?”

As Holly had said, their technology was amazing. I was beginning to get seriously worried...

* * *

I didn’t mind the extra-close shave with a cutthroat razor, being used to it by now, but I tried to argue with Vera about the need for ‘waxing’. She was sympathetic but firm.

“You can’t be seen with hairy arms and legs when your maid is dressing you in front of the paying customers,” she pointed out.

She handed me a glass, half full of strong-smelling brown liquid.

“Anaesthetic,” she said with a smile. “You’ll probably need it. Drink up.”

I gulped it down. It was very good whisky. It gave me a lovely warm feeling inside and made my eyes water.

“Also, we have to clean up your chest and back and backside,” Vera continued, “because we’ll be sticking prostheses all over to give you your lovely middle-aged-lady figure…”

“Wait – sticking?”

“Oh yes, the prostheses are stuck on using medical adhesive,” she said. “You can’t risk them sliding off, can you?”

“But what about…” I paused, glancing downwards, searching for the right words.

“Oh, don’t worry about that. The abdominal prosthesis has a special gadget that enables you to… fulfil your obligations… down there. Now come on – up on the table.”

The anaesthetic helped – a bit. It was still the most pain I had ever experienced. When she finished she dabbed away a few drops of blood, then rubbed a soothing cream all over me. That part I liked.

* * *

When Ingrid returned, she was pushing something like a dinner trolley on which were a number of hideous-looking, flesh-coloured objects. Holly followed behind her, looking annoyingly cheerful. When she saw my hairless, denuded body, pink and glistening, she gasped and grinned. She was about to laugh and say something along the lines of ‘Now you know what it’s like for us women,’ until she saw the look on my face and thought better of it. Tact was never her strong suit, but she did love me (or said she did).

“I’ll go and get her clothes from the car, shall I?” she said.

“Good idea,” said Ingrid. “Also, we have a couple of other things to discuss.”

When they had gone Vera reached for the largest item on the trolley. This looked, as I suppose I should have expected, exactly like the lower half of an overweight woman, including a realistic genital area complete with pubic hair. The only difference was that it was empty inside. My lower half would be filling it.

She grunted with the effort of lifting it off the trolley, so I could safely assume it was heavy. I had wondered at the time what Sheila’s friend used that ‘supple plastic’ for. Now I was about to find out.

“This is your ‘abdominal prosthesis’,” Vera said redundantly. “I have to spread adhesive over your lower portions – from your waist down to your knees, basically.”

She reached for a large pot of something.

“What about my…?” I began, still bereft of words to describe my private parts without sounding indelicate.

“Your genitals?” she said. “There’s a special apparatus built in here. Look inside. Do you see that little tube? Your penis goes in it. The other end connects to the vagina, so that you can urinate comfortably – sitting down, of course. The rear orifice will align perfectly with your anus.”

She put the thing down again and reached for the pot of adhesive. Not wanting to be stuck to the table, I had to stand up for her to slather it all over my nether portions. It was cold and smelt like superglue.

“We have to work quickly now before it sets,” she said.

She held up the prosthesis for me to step in. With lots of wriggling from me and brute force from her – she was stronger than she looked – we managed to pull the thing up to my waist. It reminded me of Sheila’s body shaper, except that it was now firmly attached, and it was heavy.

“I have to smooth it down,” she said, “to make sure it’s in the right position and remove any air bubbles before the adhesive sets. Lie down again, please.”

She proceeded to massage me all over. This was mostly quite pleasant except when she was rubbing those areas where my newly-acquired fat was thickest; my thighs and buttocks, mainly. I couldn’t feel anything there obviously, but she had to press extra hard to get through the fake fat and ensure close, crease-free contact between the prosthetic’s inner lining and my own skin. The wobbling and jiggling that caused was disconcerting, to say the least.

“Now let’s deal with your wedding tackle,” she said with a smile.

She went over to a small refrigerator under the workbench and filled a tray with ice cubes.

“I have to push your testicles back up inside you first. It’ll be more comfortable if I ice your genital area.”

The ice on my most sensitive parts reminded me of running into the North Sea on Margate Beach. The shock caused everything to shrink quickly. Before I had even finished squealing Vera had seized the opportunity to push my testicles up and manoeuvre my penis into the little tube. She was now tugging at something high up between my legs.

“This is an almost invisible zip fastener. It will hold all your male bits up out of sight. Don’t worry – you can get them back down again when you need them. You do everything I just did in reverse. Most of our clients find it easier to get their partners to help, by the way.”

I could imagine Holly’s reaction to that request. Vera finished zipping me up and stood back.

“So how does that feel?”

“Uncomfortable.”

“You’ll get used to it.”

“Hang on, there must be a fault with your printer,” I said. “The skin on this thing is all mottled and wrinkled.”

She laughed. “No, dear, that’s just your cellulite. Perfectly normal for a forty-year-old woman who’s a little overweight. We’ll do your upper half next.”

I had to lie back down on the examination table while she glued my prosthetic breasts on. I saw why it had been important to wax my chest.

“What happens when my chest hair grows back?” I asked.

“That’s one reason why you’ll need to come here every couple of weeks,” Vera said. “But the cream I rubbed on after your waxing will inhibit the growth to some extent.”

I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what was in that cream.

“I’m going to cover up the edges of all your prosthetics with makeup now,” she said. “That way you can wear a low-cut dress in the evening and your bosom will look entirely natural.”

So I would have the pleasure of male visitors gawping at my cleavage. Another wonderful experience to look forward to.

“Stupid question, I know,” I said, “but how do I get this lot off?”

“Oh don’t worry about that,” she smiled reassuringly. “The adhesive breaks down eventually. The prosthesis will come off by itself when you lose the top layer of your skin. That takes about two weeks…”

“Two weeks?”

“Yes, that’s the other reason why you’ll have to come back here – to get your prosthetics removed, cleaned and replaced. You’ll probably have to come in a couple of times during your six-week stint as Mrs Bennet.”

She must have realised that this wasn’t what I wanted to hear.

“Of course, we have a solvent for the adhesive if you need to remove it earlier, but it’s a very laborious process. It’s much better to leave it alone for at least a fortnight. Call for an appointment when you first feel it slipping. Now, you’d better get up and move around a bit. We need to make sure everything’s correctly positioned and holding firm.”

I stood up again and staggered around the room. I felt like I was falling backwards and my knees wobbled alarmingly.

“Careful!” she warned. “You need to get used to the extra weight. Stick your chest out more; that will act as a counterbalance to your big bottom.”

This was so much worse than the ‘body’ Sheila put me in. I was even heavier now and all the extra flesh was firmly attached. At least when I stepped out of Mrs Bennet’s body shaper I was back to myself: slim, fit, young and male. None of those adjectives applied to me now. I sighed. This could be really depressing…

I gradually got the hang of walking around without falling over, but it would take me a while to get used to parts of me wobbling and swinging from side to side whenever I moved.

“These breasts are pulling on the skin of my chest,” I said.

“Yes, you need a bra to transfer some of the weight to your shoulders.” She went over to a drawer and started rummaging. “Here you are – 38DD, and these matching panties should fit too.”

I stepped into the knickers first, then Vera helped me with the bra. That was much more comfortable. My shoulders were now taking the strain of my enormous boobs – as the body shaper had done.

I put the pink dressing gown and the slippers back on.

“You now have a male head on Michelle’s female body,” Vera said. “So we need to do your face. Come and sit down over here.”

She led me over to the dressing table, pulling the now much lighter trolley with her so she could reach the remaining prosthetic pieces more easily. We sat down facing each other. My back was to the mirror.

“These work in the same way as the system that made your body prostheses, only on a smaller scale and in more detail. The software prints flesh-like pieces based on the differences between your actual face and the desired look – the ‘before’ and ‘after’ pictures. It also provides this template to help me fix each piece in the right place.”

She showed me a thin piece of plastic with lots of wavy lines on.

“Close your eyes now, dear,” she said. “Try to breathe through your nose.”

She pressed the wafer-thin template over my face, aligning its breathing holes over my nostrils.

“The mask matches the contours of your face precisely, so I don’t need to hold it,” she said. “It stays in place by itself. Now I just have to go over the lines with this stylus. It works like carbon paper, so I get thin blue lines on your face to show me where each of the prosthetic pieces goes.”

When she had finished tracing the guidelines from the template, she gently peeled it away. She picked up the first of the small fleshy pieces and painted its back with her glue.

“So is that like the latex that Esther used, to give me wrinkles?”

“No, that would be no good. Latex doesn’t last very long and it loosens with soap and water. This is more like a mask. It goes over your skin. It lasts as long as all your other prostheses and it won’t come off in the shower. You’ll be a middle-aged lady version of yourself for two weeks at a time.”

“Can I take a bottle of the solvent with me?” I asked. “For emergencies?”

“We’ll see. Shush now. I’ve still got half a dozen pieces to do, and you have blue lines all over your face.”

It took her another half an hour to finish. She stuck bags under my eyes, dimples (OK, wrinkles) on my cheeks, laughter lines around my mouth, and finally a wobbly double chin around my neck.

“Finished!” Vera declared triumphantly.

“Can I see?”

“Not just yet,” she said. “I need to wipe away the remaining blue ink. Also, your skin isn’t exactly the same colour as the prosthetics, so I need to paint your face to even it up.”

She set to with a damp tissue and a paint pot.

“We might as well put your wig on too,” she said. “Then you can see the complete picture.”

She stretched another nylon wig cap over my own hair. The wig came next. It looked very like the one I had worn before as Mrs Bennet. I suppose it was important that it could be easily styled into the sort of hairdo a middle-aged woman wore in Regency times.

Eventually she spun me round to face the mirror. The shock was even greater than when I saw myself as Mrs Bennet for the first time at our Dress Rehearsal. It was still me, but it was an older, female me. My few masculine features had been softened or concealed. The double chin completely hid my Adam’s Apple.

It was quite disturbing. There were now no giveaway signs that there was a man underneath. I was very much afraid I would have to go through with this...

Vera was on the phone.

“Yes, she’s ready,” she was saying. “She needs some clothes now.”

Holly and Ingrid turned up five minutes later, Holly carrying a suitcase. They were chatting like old friends. From what I could gather, Ingrid used to be in the business, working backstage at a small theatre nearby. She was encouraging with regard to Holly’s career as an actress but warned her that very few make the big time. I knew Holly had been told the same many times, but nothing could shake her confidence.

When I saw her, I wrapped the pink dressing gown around me more tightly to hide my distended figure, and especially the embarrassing bra and panties, but there was no concealing my face or figure. Holly stared appraisingly for a moment.

“Well,” she said, a stupid grin spreading across her flawless features, “I take it you have no further objections to my plans for our summer?”

“If you say, ‘I told you so’, I’ll still quit; promise or no promise,” I said defiantly.

“I would never,” she said, pretending to be offended. “Neither of us really knew what Ingrid’s team were capable of, did we?”

She put the suitcase down on the workbench and opened it. It was full of her mother’s cast-offs again. Seeing I already had bra and knickers on, she handed me a pair of plain tights. I sighed and took them. I sat down to put them on, turning the chair away from the others.

“It’s an amazing achievement, ladies,” Holly said. “She’s absolutely perfect. I’ll help her get dressed and we’ll get out of your hair.”

“Do you have makeup for her?” asked Vera. “Autumn colours, I think, don’t you?”

“We can do that for you before you go,” said Ingrid. “No extra charge.”

Holly agreed on my behalf.

“Do you want ‘permanent’ makeup?” asked Vera.

“No, we do not!” I said. I tried to stand up but I had got my tights twisted round my ankles.

Holly chuckled. “No, probably not. She’ll need to be made up Regency-style every morning, but she’ll want something more modern for her days off.”

Now I had to worry about makeup regimes! Could this get any worse? And what was with all these feminine pronouns?

Next: Becoming Auntie Michelle