My Secret Room

For the closet dresser living with family, there are twin problems: where to hide a female wardrobe, and not getting caught by family members coming home unexpectedly. In both respects I was outstandingly lucky.

I started dressing when I was twelve or thirteen. I was an only child, and since I was ten years old both my parents had been going out to work during the day. So on school vacations I was alone in the house and could spend some time dressed. Luckily neither of my parents ever came home unexpectedly and caught me.

At first I was wearing my mother's clothes, having no other source. But eventually I started buying a few of my own, when I could afford them on whatever was left of a meager adolescent budget, after covering other necessities such as records. (I imagine most people here are old enough to remember what "records" were.) I remember tooling around town on my bike, now and again bringing home a blouse or underwear hidden in the saddlebag, and smuggling it indoors later when my parents weren't around.

As an only child, I had a bedroom to myself, with an old chest of drawers that was fortunately lockable. So I was able to conceal my small stash in there, among other items of my own, with no brothers or sisters to come prying or "borrowing" things.

When I was just shy of seventeen my father died as a result of an accident. It was a sad loss of a good man, husband and father. All I can say is that there were one or two things to compensate me. For one I "inherited" his car, which I had to myself since my mother never drove. Among other more obvious benefits, now I could go farther afield in search of stores having female clothing I liked, and nobody to investigate what I brought home in the car.

Besides that, our house had an attic. It had no flooring and was only accessible through a trapdoor in the ceiling. Nobody had ever used it as a room. or installed one of those drop-down ladders. My father might have climbed up there on a stepladder for some reason or other, though there wasn't much of interest there except for a water tank. However, I knew my mother would never do that.

So I made it my "secret room." I started by making a rope ladder, with cord and lengths of broomstick for the rungs, to give more convenient access. I strung a light up there; there was no skylight, so the attic was pitch-dark without it. I got hold of some lumber to use for flooring (here the car came in useful again) and put it down to cover the joists. My mother knew I went up there on occasion, because once I inadvertently put my foot through the ceiling and she came home to find me repairing the hole with plaster, complaining about the dust where I was sanding it flat from below. But she never knew what I did up there.

The flooring was in the middle where the roof was high enough to stand up. At the sides, where the roof sloped down lower, there was no point in laying floorboards down, but gaps between the joists were a useful place to keep my growing stash of clothing, covered by a large sheet of thin plywood that I could lift on hinges as a lid.

In later years my first "serious" girlfriend and I made love up there on an old mattress we got from somewhere, with my mother in the house below having no idea we were there, as long as we kept quiet. One time another girl who couldn't get home that night slept up there. . My innocent mother (a nice woman, incidentally) thought any strange noises above her head must be mice. For more reasons than one, it was a fun place.

But my girlfriend, like my mother, never knew about the clothes hidden under that hinged lid in a dark corner of the attic. And my "secret room" served me well for several years, not just to hide my clothes, but also as a place to dress where I never needed to fear being discovered. My mother never knew what I was really doing up there. For more reasons than one, I always thanked my lucky stars for the precious gift of privacy.

Interesting story Marianne.

I did not have a stash when I was younger so I never had to deal with it then. My kids are grown now and my wife does not go into the attic very much. I hide my stuff there. In summer, it goes up to 140F so it is a strong deterrent against going up there. The only bad thing is that the heat is bad for my clothing so I have 3 expensive dresses hidden at the end of my closet so that they are hard to see. Hopefully I will not get busted with them. I just do not want those to get messed up. It would be nice if I did not have to hide it all. I am envious of the people with accepting wives.

Sandi

Marianne, What a wonderful story, I throughly enjoyed it.
When I was young and living at home we had a walk in storage room on the 2nd floor near my bedroom. It had a light and I used it to dress, only when nobody was home. On hot days it was sweltering but I did not care I just wanted to avoid getting caught, which I did. When I started to buy a few things as I got older I hid them there for the most part.
Fond memories for sure.

Hi Marianne :hugs:, Thanks for sharing your story, >Orchid ..O:daydreaming:O..

Hi Marianne,

I could sure use a room like that. Such a wonderful story. Thank you for sharing!

Thanks for sharing!

When I was about 12 my stash was stuffed through a hole in my mattress but did the job as it was never discovered. x

And there was me with a bag on top of the tall bookcase in my room and waiting until the small hours to wear my meagre collection! Well done for your industriousness!

Marianne i sure hope you were not living in Phoenix at that time! Thank for sharing a great memory of the good old days! :hugs:

Great story!

I remember hiding in my closet for hours if someone came home unexpected.
I remember it as being exciting.

Great story and writing. Just enough detail to keep me riveted without being boring. I had no such room, hence this part of me didn?t thrive as a teen.

Marianne: I loved reading about your hidden room. I never had any thing like that, until I was older. It was a hidden door I cut into a wall cavity, I kept my cloths in. Not big enough for me, just my cloths.

Thanks for sharing Marianne. I was one of 5 kids so borrowing my sisters' clothes only happened when I was home alone; a rare and wonderful treat. I would have dressed much more often if I had access to a secret room.

I never dressed in an attic, but every attic I have known was unbearably hot in the summer and unbearably cold in the winter. OK for storing stuff, but not for dressing.

Marianne, first of all, I am very sorry to hear of the loss of your father when you were so young, I know that must not have been easy. Secondly, I'm 36 years old and even I know what records and 8-tracks are/were. LOL I actually listened to a few records when I was a kid at my grandparents' house, I thought records were really cool.

Anyway, what an amazing story..... I'm glad you were able to fix up that attic to your liking, to be your "secret room" and to be able to dress privately without being discovered.

Marianne, What a great story. When growing up, my bedroom had the entry door to the attic and I kept many an item I had purchased hidden in the attic. Additionally, I had access to my mother's and sister's items stored in the attic.

Your story is ours ,,we always have a safe place at the beginning ,,mine was in the reflected ceiling in the apartement , then when I got married it was in our wardrobe in the wall gap for a shaft which was big enough to store lot of things .....

Building a secret room has always been on my "if I hit the lottery" bucket list.

Being from Ohio we always had a basement. A secret door from the basement. Kinda like the stairs in The Munsters where Spot lived! Or a block wall with a mirror mounted in front of the doorway hidden behind it. :)

I'm still waiting for the winning ticket:(

Yes, I think we all had or have a storage/hiding spot, yours was just bigger. Thanks for sharing.

Thanks for sharing your story. As a teenager the only women's clothing available to me was my mother's. Very limited, especially as I got bigger. My family lived in a two bedroom apartment in a housing project. I shared a bedroom with an older brother. The only dressing I was able to do was at night when I would pull one of my mother's nightgowns out of the laundry bag in the closet next to my bed and slip into it when my brother was asleep. My parents were homophobic. If I had been found out I am sure my ass would have been beaten to a pulp. They suspected I was wearing my mother's clothing and tried to catch me doing it. If our apartment did not have security chain on the door I know I would have been caught. My storage room right now is our converted garage into living space which is now storage. I have about twenty Xerox boxes of clothing, but no opportunity to wear very much as my wife is now fully retired. COVID has done away with babysitting our grandchild over night at our daughter's apartment. Got to get that vaccine done real soon!

After i retired i floored our roof space--quite a job single handed!True the wife gave me a hand with a very large baulk of timber.The roof was fitted out as a hobby room(we had a new roof fitted few years before--this included a skylight) having fitted out a workbench,racks,drawing board&shelves i was ready to start---designing &building model aircraft! (whats this i hear you say-this a C/D forum...... ) the models were made&flown for about20years then i was ,well "Hit" out the blue by C/D!
So i needed a place to keep my stash.....
As has been reported on here roof spaces are hot in summer( even in the U/K ! ) &cold in winter.Its here i keep my shoes-each pair in a small cotton bag as no room in my wardrobe. I came out to my wife- her summing up --"its you being you" so no longer any need to hide my "stuff".
I rotate my shoes ,keeping about 4pairs in the bedroom &change them to match whatever dress/outfit i feel like wearing, Oh yes-- i am allowed to dress around the house, but when i sugested to the wife that she come with me to a weekend hotel "Do"----no was the answer !
However the Domestic authority has given me the use of a spare wardrobe.......

I built a secret room in the basement. A sliding bookcase reveals a small room about 4' by 10'. The bookcase is held closed by a magna-lock that is unlocked by a RFID tag waived in the right place.

We use it to hide Christmas gifts and some adult toys from the tots.

I just built my secret room. My in-laws are living with my wife and I for a year now and planning on staying for about another year or two. They was renting and the rent was really high so we offered for them to stay with us and help with the bills but also help them save up money so they can put a down payment on a house thats can be there's. So my house is gotten cramped and I decided to tear down my back deck and add another living room and bedroom and bathroom. When we built the living room I framed out my secret room between the living room and new bedroom. I did the same thing my secret door is a bookcase door in the new bedroom that my wife and I moved into and it locks from the inside so no one knows I am in there besides my wife. Its about a 10x10 and thats where I keep everything. Its something I always wanted since I seen movies with secret rooms and I finally did mine.

So cool! I’m planning my secret closet. We have an unfinished basement that we are getting ready to finish. I’m doing layout now and am working Danielle’s space into it will be great to get her stuff out of bags and storage bins:)

What a wonderful story Marianne... sounds delightful.

I first crossdressed wearing my neighbor's lingerie while babysitting. It was a new, exciting behavior that began when I was 12 years old and first experimenting with masturbation. You can imagine the thrill of pairing an orgasm with a sexy brassiere and negligee! The neighbors lived next door so I was always at risk of being discovered by my mother. The one night she came over to check I was saved because I'd locked the door and had time to remove the lingerie AND wipe the lipstick off my mouth and cheeks. I said I'd fallen asleep and it seemed to work.

As I've mentioned elsewhere this first episode morphed into stealing lingerie from neighbor's clotheslines and homes. I stored it around our home which had a partially improved basement. This worked for three years until my mother found a bag of lingerie under my bed. By the time she spoke with me the lingerie had disappeared. Our conversation was as difficult as you'd imagine. She referred me to the family doctor who'd been present for my delivery. He as as embarrassed as my mother. When he told to stop, I agreed. We all know that didn't happen. Having a car gave me the perfect place to stash clothes, but I was still stealing them. Eventually I was caught.

What I wouldn't have given for a secure location to hide lingerie. I honestly think as I reflect back on that and other sexual acting out I've done, the ingredient of secrecy added immensely to the excitement of the behavior. All of that has changed now that I'm an adult, living alone, giving myself permission to enjoy these pleasures. I certainly love reading about the experiences others have had along the way. Thanks for initiating this conversation.