Frances ME-1-G FPE

FRANCES

TRUE STORY

My mother was a real dresser. She was a confirmed tight lacer, padded her bosoms, and wore the highest heels in town. It was fortunate for me that from the time I was thirteen we were about the same size. At least it seemed that way to me.

I helped her get dressed every morning. My father went to work early after bringing coffee to her bedside. When I was dressed, I went to her bedroom. She was usually waiting, standing in her high-heeled shoes that laced up to her knees, with her corsets clasped around her, ready for me to lace her up. She said she loved to have me lace her in her corsets, saying they fitted better when someone laced them for her.

Those were the days of long, heavily boned corsets, high waisted in front, the well-boned back curving up from her armpits to her shoulders and the bottom reaching down well over her buttocks and thighs. Her dresses fitted tightly and were fastened by hooks and eyes, often in hard to reach places at the back and sides, making it difficult and sometimes impossible for her to finish dressing herself after being laced up thor- oughly in the tight unyielding corsets and brassieres of the time. Even her padded brassiere laced in back. She even needed help to fasten the six garters tightly to her stockings, and she was very fussy about these. They had to be placed just right and adjusted to keep her stockings pulled up tightly. She wore expensive heavy silk stockings and there was little danger of a run. Finally, corset cover tightened in place, I would help her with her dress and hook her up.

I had been helping her dress since I was old enough and it did not seem strange to me that a boy should help his mother with her corsets as my father often did when he was home. For the last year or so, how-

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