The Uniform

Well, this wasn’t exactly the way I had planned on starting my weekend.

I had literally been walking out the front door when my mother called me back for the tedious favor. Apparently the girl a couple houses down needed a temporary babysitter. And why was I the one for the job? Oh right, because I had watched her back when I was sixteen and she was nine. Now that we were both five years older, however, it seemed a little bit ridiculous that my college self would need to supervise a teenager who was easily old enough to be home alone. Before I could complain about how I had places to be, however, I was offered $50 for what would only be maybe half an hour to an hour of my time.

Since I wasn’t truly in a rush, I shrugged and accepted. Whatever. A girl Lacey’s age wouldn’t take much effort, anyway. It’s like when I used to babysit for kids in the 11-13 age range; most of the time, they were happy to do their own thing and I basically got paid to do homework at someone else’s house.

Before heading over, I was given the details. The girl’s parents were going on an overseas trip and didn’t love the idea of leaving their daughter alone for a full month. Not wanting to impose on anyone for that long, they hired a professional nanny to take Lacey for the extent of their trip. I certainly felt for the girl, as I imagined that she would have preferred staying at a friend’s house the entire time instead, or even a relative’s. Still, it wasn’t really my business. I was just being sent over to make sure Lacey didn’t run off before the woman arrived.

I’m not sure what I expected. I hadn’t seen the girl in years, and there was a good chance she’d be in that angsty/brooding state if her parents were leaving her in such a way. What I didn’t see coming, however, was for her to be nearly half a foot taller than me.

Lacey was the one to open the front door, rather than her parents, and she greeted me with a beaming expression. “Mira!” she exclaimed. Before I knew it, she was wrapping her arms around me and pulling me in for a hug, “Holy shit, you’re so cute!” Stepping back but keeping her hands on my upper arms as she looked me up and down, she giggled and asked, “Were you always this small?”

There was no malice whatsoever in her tone, so I had to force a casual smile in response to her warm and seemingly innocent attitude. Also, I wasn’t even that small. Maybe slightly under average in both the height and curves department, but not noticeably so. Lacey was just stupid tall for her age; add in the fact that she used to be a kid who had only ever looked up at me until now, and of course she was commenting on my size. “Were you always this touchy?” I asked, not knowing what else to say as I politely took her hands and removed them from my shoulders, “Are you parents still here?”

They were, but not for much longer. Lacey showed me inside, and her parents and I exchanged pleasantries for a couple minutes before they headed out the door. Now that I was here, they were free to go. It still felt weird to be babysitting a girl her age, especially now that I saw how much she had grown, but at least she wasn’t going to be all bitchy or pissy about it. I always hated when teenagers took their frustrations out on me when their parents were the ones who hired me. I was just doing my job.

I half expected her personality to turn on a dime the moment the front door closed, but thankfully that didn’t seem to be the case. “Want to see my room?” she asked, “You probably won’t recognize it at all!”

“Umm, sure,” I replied. Only so much time to kill, after all. If she was offering something to do as the minutes ticked down, then I wasn’t going to object.

Following her upstairs and then into her bedroom, I wasn’t surprised in the slightest to see that it looked almost exactly like almost every friend’s bedroom I had seen at sleepovers when I was her age. Neat yet messy, pictures all over one of the walls, and colors that were a lot brighter than my roommate and I tended to keep things in our dorm.

It’s the main reason why I wasn’t particularly fond of her unintentionally patronizing compliment earlier. I dressed more alternatively, and today was no exception. My dark gray tee and black zip-up hoodie didn’t exactly scream ‘girly’ or ‘cute,’ and the metal studded belt was just edgy enough without pushing into cringe range. I put a lot of work into my appearance, especially when I was home for the summer and trying to make sure people didn’t see me as the teenage girl I used to be, although clearly the image didn’t work on Lacey or her parents. They seemed to view me as the same old babysitter that used to come to their house.

Lacey was halfway to her closet when she gasped and turned around, “Omg, Mira! I bet you could fit into my school uniform from last year.”

Another jab at my size? Although again, it didn’t really sound like it. I gave another noncommittal shrug, along with a, “Maybe.” No idea, really, considering I hadn’t seen her recently until today.

“Want to try?!” she giggled, “Here, one sec! I know it’s in here somewhere.”

She disappeared into the small walk-in closet that I was a little bit jealous of both then and now. It’s not that hers had that much more space than a regular one, but I had yet to have anything walk-in myself. “Not really?” I belatedly replied, after she had stepped inside. My current outfit was just fine, and I was a little too old to play dress-up.

“Come on, it’ll be fun. Ooh, here it is!” She appeared again with a couple hangers that held different pieces to what was clearly a schoolgirl uniform. It was a lot more simple and modest than the skimpy kind that certain people were into, but it was also impossible to look at such clothes without the underlying connotation any more. Some schools really still required this stuff? “Please, Mira?” she pouted, “It’s the least you can do before you send me away for the summer.”

I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. Lacey was way too old to pout, and it’s not like I was the one shipping her off to live with a nanny. Also, classic teenage exaggeration. It was a month, not the whole seasonal vacation. “Nice try,” I said, “How about I keep my clothes, and you give me a fashion show instead?” It was a bit of a stretch leaning into some of the things I remembered from my babysitting days, but I was also a bit out of practice.

Lacey huffed out an audible sigh. “Fine. When did you get so boring? Here, hold these?” she asked without really asking. The way she pushed the hangers into my arms made it so I had to get a rushed and awkward grip on them before they fell to the ground when she let go. Then, to my surprise, she gripped the hem of her tank top and showed a bit of bare midriff as she began pulling the top up.

“Wait!” I blurted out. There were so many things that had caught me off guard, almost all at once. The suggestion that I was boring. The uniform I was still trying to sort out in my arms. And, of course, the fact that Lacey was low key starting to strip. Even though we were both girls, and the double straps on her shoulders suggested she was wearing a bra, Lacey was still sixteen. It was a little weird being in her bedroom while she took off her clothes. Averting my gaze, I hurriedly asked, “What are you doing?”

“I’m doing what you said?” she replied, sounding a little confused, “A fashion show means putting on different clothes.”

“Yeah, but-” I hesitated. It’s not like it was actually that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things, but I was thrown off just enough to be flustered by the unexpected turn of events. With the slightly underage factor, and the fact that I was being paid as a ‘babysitter,’ my instincts were to somehow avoid what could be potentially seen as a questionable situation. “Lacey, stop,” I said, panicking when half her torso was exposed and she was mere inches from revealing her bra. “Actually, the uniform idea sounds kind of fun,” I said, grasping for the most reachable idea in the form of the clothes I was holding, “You really think it would fit me?”

Lacey paused her movements. “Well, yeah,” she said, “I was about your size last year.”

“Maybe you can do a fashion show afterwards?” I suggested, already thinking of ways to stall on that front until her nanny arrived. For now, I was apparently going to dress in a way that was the total opposite to my public school experiences growing up. And also, not even remotely my current style.

“Okay!” She pulled her top back down and shifted it back into place. “This’ll be fun, Mari! But hurry, okay? We only have so much time before I have to go.”

That was what I was counting on. “I’ll be right back,” I said. Very much preferring the idea of changing in the bathroom rather than her closet, I turned towards the opposite end of the room.

“Down the hall on the right,” she said.

“I remember.”

It wasn’t until I was a few feet out of her bedroom that I fully processed what I had just signed up for. Ugh. Was I really about to put this on? It had made so much sense in the heat of the moment, but I was more reluctant now that I had a moment to myself to think. Then again, it certainly served as a way to run down the clock. Considering that I’d be both changing and changing back, I could take my sweet time on each. I had already been here for a good five or ten minutes. I’m sure I could dawdle in the bathroom and check a couple apps before returning to Lacey’s room. While it would be far easier to simply lie and say her old uniform didn’t fit, that would only give me one trip. Might as well try.

While her bedroom had certainly transformed, the upstairs bathroom was rather familiar in comparison. I pulled out my phone to glance at the time, and decided to change first. Better to get that over with, and then sit around for a couple minutes afterwards. I made short work of stripping off my jeans and hoodie, only hesitating when I reached my shirt. On the off chance that Lacey’s skirt didn’t fit me, as that was the outfit piece that would be the least likely to work if my current figure wasn’t quite what hers was when she wore it, I stepped into the plaid number first. It wasn’t until I was pulling it up my thighs that I bothered to look more carefully. Instead of a zipper, it had a slightly stretchy waistband that would be a lot more flexible in terms of fitting a variety of body types. Of course. If all the girls at her school wore this, then they’d make uniform pieces that were easier to distribute.

Once it was clear that the skirt easily sat on my waist, I made short work of stripping the rest of the way and putting on the button-up shirt and sweater vest that somewhat matched the skirt. As I looked myself over in the mirror and saw the schoolgirl looking back at me, I was eternally grateful that I never had to deal with this growing up. Wearing the same outfit every single day? Gross. I guess it wasn’t a boarding school, so Lacey and her friends could have some individuality in the afternoons and evenings, but still.

Following through with my plan, I took some time neatly folding up my clothes and replying to a couple of messages before eventually heading back to show off the ridiculous ensemble that was so much less like me than what I had been wearing before.

“See? It fits you perfectly!” she grinned, “Okay, young lady. Come with me.” Strutting right past me, Lacey left the room and turned the opposite way down the hall.

“Umm . . . ” I muttered more to myself than to her. Reluctantly following, as technically it was my job to watch her even though I realized in retrospect that she easily could have run off when I was in the bathroom, I stepped back out of her room to find her heading down the stairs. “Where are we going?” I asked. Going after her, though not particularly rushing now that it was clear that her plan didn’t involve running away when I wasn’t looking, I found her standing with a hand on her hip in the middle of the living room.

“Little Ms. Mari, you have work to do,” Lacey said. She gestured to a folder and a small pile of books on the coffee table that I remembered passing by earlier. “Your summer reading. Isn’t it best to start earlier, instead of saving it all until the end of your break?”

Truthfully, that was what I did with my own summer reading. And even then, I mostly just looked up the summaries and the answers online. None of my teachers had ever used the material for their actual classes, which made it such a dumb assignment that screwed with everyone’s summer break. Maybe it was different with a school like hers. But that wasn’t the point, was it? I was more surprised by the unexpected and cringeworthy roleplay. “Seriously?” I scoffed, “I said I would try it on, not be a student. Unlike you, I’ve already done my time.”

“Just play along,” she giggled the same way as the last few times, “You might as well. I still have some packing to do!”

“What’s in it for me?” I asked. Playing along in a sense, but on my own terms. Now that she had proven that she wasn’t a flight risk, I trusted her to be alone in her room for something like packing. But at the same time, it felt a little bit silly to sit down here and pretend to read one of the books she had been assigned.

“How about . . . a fun surprise?” she offered.

I rolled my eyes again. “Is that code for ‘You have no idea?’”

“Guess we’ll see!” she winked, “Now sit, Ms. Mari. No getting up until I say so.”

“Mm hmm.” To humor her, I sat down on the edge of the sofa. Obviously I wouldn’t really be stuck there, as I could head upstairs to check on her whenever I wanted. But if this was the way she wanted to entertain herself, then fine. “You do realize that whatever I read won’t actually help you read it yourself, right?”

“I’m already part way through this one,” she said. Lacey picked up the top book and handed it to me, “Your project is to read the first ten chapters. Then you may come back to my room, and I’ll quiz you.”

Suddenly regretting the fact that I left my phone on the bathroom counter, as I had assumed this would be a very short fashion show of my own before changing back, I internally sighed at the thought that I couldn’t just look things up in order to more efficiently play her little game. “Ten chapters?” I raised an eyebrow.

“They’re quick; promise!” She gave my head a teasingly patronizing pat before stepping back, “And no cheating. You will stay right here until you’re done, young lady. Okay?”

Resisting the urge to once again roll my eyes, I gave a clearly sarcastic, “Yes, ma’am.”

Apparently satisfied with that, Lacey headed back upstairs. While I didn’t actually feel compelled to listen to her from the impromptu roleplay, this was reminiscent enough of my ideal babysitting experiences that I opened the book anyway. She could pack, and I could have some time alone instead of needing to deal with fashion shows or anything else a little bit too teenage for my level of maturity.

Starting with the first chapter, I started chipping away at the ‘project’ I had been given while shifting every now and then in the unfamiliar clothes. Lacey had said the chapters were quick, but exposition always dragged on longer than the rest of the book for me. Without my phone, it could have easily been ten minutes or an hour by the time I reached the sixth chapter. The peace and quiet was nice, but I was more and more tempted to glance around the corner to check the kitchen clock. Or, of course, to simply head upstairs and call it quits on Lacey’s little assignment.

Before I could make up my mind, however, there was a knock on the door.

The nanny was already here? Wow, that was fast. Whenever anyone gave me a 30-60 minute range, I usually assumed it would fall on the later side of that spectrum. “Lacey!” I called out. Closing the book and standing up, I walked over to the bottom of the stairs. “Ready to go?”

“I’m peeing!” she called back.

Teenagers. There were a dozen more polite ways to announce that. Or, better yet, she could have just said she would be down in a minute. Either way, it fell to me to answer the door while I waited for her to finish up and grab her things.

I almost made it to the foyer before the next knock. Grimacing a bit at the thought of seeming rude for taking so long, I quickly opened the front door for the woman on the other side. She was only five or ten years older than I was; younger than I expected, which was mostly my fault for having any expectations like that in the first place. ‘Nanny’ could really mean anything in terms of age.

“Hey,” I said, stepping back right away to let her in, “Sorry. I didn’t expect you so soon.”

“Not a problem,” she replied, “You must be Lacey.”

Oh. Right. In my haste to let her in, I had completely forgotten about what I was wearing for a second. “Yeah, no,” I chuckled, “Lacey’s upstairs. I’m Mira. I was just-”

“So, the girl in charge is the one in uniform? Likely story,” she sighed, “I don’t know what your parents told you about me, so let’s start with the basics. You may call me Ms. Evans, and it’s really up to you whether you’ll have a pleasant stay at my place or not. I’ve been doing this for almost ten years, and you’re certainly not the first teenager I’ve looked after.”

“Right, but I’m not Lacey. Listen, we were just playing a stupid game, and I put on one of her old outfits for fun.” As I heard my own words, I realized how ridiculous it sounded. While I knew that I was a few years older than Lacey, I could see how Ms. Evans was skeptical. “Look, this is just a misunderstanding,” I went on, trying to explain, “Lacey’s upstairs packing. I’m Mira; really.”

The woman just gave me a long, silent look after closing the door behind her. She wasn’t kidding about her years of experience; the stern/intimidating look was quite effective, and surely something she had perfected over the course of her career. “I don’t appreciate being lied to, young lady,” she finally said, “I’ll consider all of this a grace period, but that time is over now. Let’s start fresh, shall we? My name is Ms. Evans. And you are?”

“Mira,” I flatly said. She wasn’t necessarily being patronizing, but it was still frustrating to be spoken to as if I was the girl I was hired to watch. “Lacey’s upstairs, in her bedroom.”

“Uh huh. Perhaps that’s where the real Mira is, but you’re not fooling anyone right now. I’ll give you one last chance, Lacey. Who are you?”

“I’m Mira!” I groaned. My time killing method was suddenly working against me in all the wrong ways.

“Wrong answer.” The young woman lunged forward and grabbed my wrist and stormed right past me as if she owned the place.

I was caught totally off guard, and winced in pain as my body ended up being roughly swiveled by my own arm. “What are you doing?!” I exclaimed, but it did very little. Ms. Evans didn’t break her stride in the slightest, and I ended up stumbling forward and almost losing my balance from the harsh tug on my wrist. “Let go!” I demanded.

She did no such thing. Instead, she dragged me towards the room in which I had just been reading one of Lacey’s books. In my struggles and disbelief, I didn’t connect the dots about her intentions until she abruptly sat down on the sofa and pulled me with her.

Unable to do anything against the way her assertive yank and the forces of gravity worked together, my eyes widened at the sudden falling sensation. I landed right on her lap and, before I could squirm off of her legs, the hand that had been firmly holding my wrist was now pulling me and subsequently pinning me into place. Gasping in horror as I felt her other hand lift the plaid skirt all the way up and over my ass, I immediately started writhing like an eel in protest. “Ms. Evan, stop!! I’m not Lacey!!!!” I screamed. She wasn’t about to spank me, was she??

My erratic movements did very little to help my situation. She had put me in a position where a single arm was enough to keep me exactly where she wanted me; her legs and torso assisted in trapping me where I had been placed. “You may think you’re too old for something like this, Lacey, but it’s on the discipline list your parents authorized. Believe it or not, I’ve seen my fair share of girls like you who will say or do anything when they think they don’t need a guardian. Now then . . .”  She rested her hand on one of my bare cheeks, as my thong didn’t cover very much back there. “Are you sure you’re not Lacey?”

“Of course I’m sure!!” I immediately replied, “I’m Mira!” Maybe the best play would have been ‘confessing,’ if only to get her off my back long enough that I could take her upstairs, but I was still appalled that she wouldn’t just listen. I was an adult, kind of; still a student, sure, but I was definitely more of a woman than Lacey was. Clothes or not, surely the way I carried myself should be enough to sort out the mortifying misunderstanding that led to this.

“Well, don’t say I didn’t give you ample opportunities to tell the truth,” she said.

And then she started spanking me. For real. Despite the degrading position, and the warning about how it was on whatever list she had, I had still expected this to all be some form of extreme bluff. Not so much. Ms. Evans wasted no time in delivering a hard slap to the cheek she had threatened with her touch, then mirrored the action with a smack to the other side. “Don’t! Oh my God, stop!!” I exclaimed when she returned to the first cheek. Left, right, left, right, left, right, left, right. My words fell on deaf ears, as did my desperate attempts to wriggle away.

She didn’t relent for quite some time, until delivering a particularly sharp spank to my right side. “That’s fifty.” Still sounding far more calm in comparison to the embarrassingly shrill way I had been protesting in both pain and humiliation, she asked, “Now, would you like to tell me who you really are, or would you like another fifty? Oh,” her voice shifted ever so slightly, “You must be Mira.”

For a fleeting moment, I thought Ms. Evans finally understood, somehow. Until I noticed a bit of movement in my peripheral vision. As I glanced over to see Lacey standing across the room, my jaw dropped in shock and horror.

She was wearing MY clothes. Well, most of them. Her jeans were a little bit darker, but the rest of the ensemble was absolutely mine. Because of our slight size difference, my gray shirt rode up on her even more than it did on me, as did my favorite sweater, giving Lacey more bare midriff than the outfit was supposed to show. The top also hugged her breasts rather tightly, but not necessarily in an unattractive way. She was even wearing my belt and my necklace.

What the actual fuck?! “Lacey!” I exclaimed. The image of her dressed like me was enough to make me temporarily ignore the fact that I was half bottomless and bent over her nanny’s lap. “What are you doing?”

That momentary ignorance of my situation was quickly shattered when Ms. Evan’s hand cracked down on my backside for the 51st time. “HEY. What did I tell you about lying?”

“Sorry,” the real Lacey said, “I didn’t mean to interrupt.” She didn’t seem fazed in the slightest at the fact that I was being spoken to and disciplined in such a way. “I’m packing up a few extra things Lacey might have overlooked. Is there anything in particular you think she’ll need, that we might not have thought of?”

She just called me- and she was wearing- Oh, my God, Lacey set me up!! It dawned on me embarrassingly late that this was more than a simple case of mistaken identity. How could I have been so stupid? I literally let Lacey dress me up like a schoolgirl from head to toe, and she . . . Shit. Holy shit.

“Ms. Evans, listen!” I blurted out, panicking a little bit when I realized just what Lacey might be up to. She wasn’t trying to trick her nanny or prank me just for the fun of it; she wanted to send me off in her place! “She’s the real Lacey. Please, I can-”

WHACK.

“No, this-”

WHACK.

“I’m not-”

WHACK.

Every single time I tried to push through the spankings and explain, Ms. Evans delivered another harsh blow to my already sore and stinging cheeks. For a minute or so, I tried to get the words out anyway, but it didn’t matter. While I did complete a couple full sentences, with half the phrases consisting of humiliating squeaks and gasps and cries that Lacey was now present to witness, it was as if the stern woman didn’t hear anything I was trying to say. Eventually, she stopped punishing me with singular slaps and began wailing nonstop on my nearly bare ass until I gave up.

I wasn’t crying crying, but my eye water had absolutely progressed to a couple of tears that I knew would make me look even less mature than I already did, and the noises I made along the way were all kinds of girly and damning in their own way. Finally relenting again, but following the brief pause with one last sharp SMACK, Ms. Evans addressed Lacey, “Just clothes and toiletries, and her summer work. Unless this is everything here?” she nodded towards the coffee table, “Perhaps a swimsuit and some athletic clothes, to be safe.”

“Got it,” Lacey said. I couldn’t see her face very well between my awkward angle and glistening eyes, but I practically heard the amusement in her voice. Did her expression match her tone? And, if so, why couldn’t Ms. Evans see it? “I’ll be quick; I don’t want you waiting on my behalf.”

“Thank you,” Ms. Evans said. And, once Lacey disappeared back up the stairs, I became the focus again. “Young lady, this is your last warning. I don’t want to hear another word out of you until we’re back at my place. I’m serious. Not a sound, or it will be a hundred more of those. Nod if you understand.”

Nervously swallowing, I bobbed my head ever so slightly.

She instructed me to get myself sorted, and I did just that after she released her grip so I could get off her lap. With trembling fingers, I covered myself back up with the skirt and adjusted it until it was sitting properly on me again. Wiping my face dry next, and uncomfortably shifting my weight from foot to foot as I realized just how sore my lower cheeks were now that I had a moment to breathe, I found myself completely paralyzed in nervousness. There was no way I could handle another spanking like that, which meant I couldn’t speak. And the uniform I was wearing was certainly not designed for physical activity; if I tried to run, it would most likely go poorly.

True to her word, Lacey didn’t take long. I heard her footsteps on the stairs less than a minute after I had gotten as settled as I could. This time, she was carrying the duffel bag that she had been in the process of packing earlier. “All set,” she said, “Ready to go, Lacey?”

“She’s ready,” Ms. Evans said on my behalf, “Come on, girl. Take your bag and follow me to the car. Try anything, and you will be punished.”

Almost as if I was in a trance, I did just that. There were so many other things I wanted to do or say, most of which revolved around chastising and cursing out the real Lacey, but Ms. Evans had already proved how easily she could get me over to the sofa and onto her lap. If I deviated from her most recent directive, that’s exactly where I would end up again. Reluctantly walking over to Lacey, I took the bag she held out for me as I approached.

Waiting until we were as close as we were going to get, Lacey said under her breath, “It’s nothing personal; I just want my summer. Don’t worry, I’ll make sure no one misses you. I watched you type in your password earlier.”

Stepping back with her lips pursed in a little smile that just victorious enough that I only I would notice, she said more audibly, “See you in a month, Lacey!”