Whores and Pimps - Part I

What did happen was that Malcolm heard snickering and looked up to see Eddies grinning face peering over the adjacent stall. Malcolm was horrified and just looked up slack jawed. Eddie just said,

Nice underwear sweet-cheeks, and his face disappeared from view.

Malcolm spent the rest of the day, then the week, and then month in agony waiting for Eddie to torment him and ridicule him in front of his colleagues; he thought up ridiculous excuses as to why he might be dressed that way but the best he could come up with was that it was a bet; but with who? As it turned out Eddie never said anything to anyone else; he just occasionally sidled up to Malcolm and whispered,

Are you wearing them today? winked and walked away.

Eventually Malcolm decided that Eddie was too scared to bring up what had happened because he would have to explain his own actions; spying on a man doing his business in a toilet stall. Malcolm figured Eddie was content to just torment him occasionally with the question as to wether he was wearing female underwear to work. Malcolm never wore female underwear to work after that; he remained content to just play dress-up at home. Until one day.

Every year on the anniversary of firm's founding, the bosses paid out for a big party; it had become a tradition. The party was fancy dress and it was held on the evening of the last working day before the Christmas break. Over the years it had become customary for the party to have a theme; and the theme had a twist. The twist was that whatever the theme was, the women dressed in the male or dominant role and the men dressed in the feminine or submissive role. One year it was 'cops and robbers'; where the women came along dressed as policemen or prison warders and the men arrived dressed as criminals or prisoners (lots of horizontal striped shirts and black masks that year; like the Beagle Boys in the Scrooge McDuck comics).

One year had been 'toffs and paupers'; lots of the women dressed in top hats and tails and the men dressed in the rags similar to the scallywags in Oliver Twist.