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Chapter 10 - "That’s All I Need To Know"
"You didn’t seem frightened," observed Jayla.
"Couldn’t show them fear, they can smell it," Logan claimed. Jayla was about to argue, but he continued in a pensive tone, as though trying the words out in his mind even as he spoke them. "Actually, though, I wasn’t really afraid. It’s strange, but their threat didn’t seem . . . real somehow."
"Those punks are nearly full grown. Together, they could have given you a very hard time."
"Oh, certainly," Logan admitted without hesitation. "And if I actually had to defend us from them, we’d all have been in for a world of trouble. But somehow I didn’t think they were ready to do real harm. Maybe it’s because they never moved to block our way or something, but they didn’t seem so much angry as, I don’t know, strutting."
"They wouldn’t have picked on you if you hadn’t dressed to please me," Jayla said.
"Maybe not," Logan said, "but maybe they’d have felt they had to do even more to prove their masculinity if they had a more ‘respectable’ opponent."
He paused to gather his thoughts, then said, "Or maybe I just don’t worry about small things like insults from punk kids any more. After all, I’ve sort of declared that I’m not bound by ‘traditional’ men’s styles, haven’t I? I hardly need to hide after what I’ve already done."
"What you’ve already done? Why do I have the feeling it’s more than just going to a movie with me?"
Logan chuckled, then said, "Well, you’re the one that met me at the door in your most sensual outfit. It’s not my fault I didn’t have time to tell you."
"Tell me what? Damnit!"
Logan’s artfully accented eyes crinkled with humor while he told Jayla about his ‘night out’ with Tylara Andrews, and how that came about. His conclusion had become clear even to him only after the confrontation with the teenagers as he said, "After being in a building full of people who were like me, only more so in a lot of ways, I guess I just quit feeling like I should apologize about how I choose to dress. When those kids started in on us tonight, I acted like I would have if I’d been dressed like any other ‘normal’ guy with a beautiful woman on my arm. Challenging my sexuality like that was just silly, and that’s how I reacted."
Jayla stared at him for a moment, then tugged gently once again at her restrained wrists. "What has gotten into you? I mean, I intended to surprise you with my little plan when you got home, but . . ."
"Well, we are home, again," Logan said as he pulled into their garage. "How about if I explain after I get you untied?"
If he expected her to agree enthusiastically, he was mistaken. Jayla sat silently while he moved around to her side of the car.
As Logan reached for her wrists, she said, "Uh, don’t do that yet, unless you really want to. It’s, um, well, I have some things to say, too."
"Okay," Logan said, "whatever you want."
"Um, maybe not," she disagreed, a complicated smile on her face that tried to be reassuring even as it showed internal confusion. She tugged again at the lines tying her wrists to her sensitive nipples, smiling even as she winced a little. Logan courteously held the doors for her and took her jacket. While she was hanging it up she sat in a comfortable chair. This time she managed not to try and grab at her skirt, so she was showing an enigmatically smug smile with an air of accomplishment, despite the fact most of her sleek thigh was exposed when Logan rejoined her.
He glanced at her still-folded arms, a question that was an offer in his eyes, but she shook her head then tossed it as a lock of hair fell into her face. Logan waited patiently, idly and unconsciously copying a habit Jayla had, though right now she couldn’t indulge in it, of twirling a strand of hair in his fingers. His patience was rewarded after a moment with a bright smile from his pensive wife. It was artificially applied, after all she was a professional model, but the message was real. She was trying, and succeeding, to project confidence and optimism.
Logan nodded to encourage her to continue. She looked at his made-up face and flowing hair. "I think," she said, "that it’s not so much feminization that I want for you as, um, unrestricted attractiveness. The first time I was trying to make you look ‘pretty’ of course. That truly was an experiment with cosmetics for redheads, and you were nicely, ah, convenient. But when I was done, when I looked at you, I knew I really liked what I saw. I want you to look as good as you can, not so much for me as because I think you deserve it. It just seems like a shame to me to have arbitrary limitations on your choices. I didn’t understand that, what I wanted I mean, at first, so I pushed in a sort of unfocused way. Many of the things I think would allow you to look your best are already used by women, and I’m familiar with them, so that’s where I started."
She struggled to her feet without using her arms, very aware though just as deliberately not showing any concern that she flashed a very intimate sight as she did so, and moved over to sit on Logan’s lap. "But I was thinking about taking it further, asking you to wear frilly ruffles or a bra, and that just didn’t seem as interesting. I *love* the way you look with your hair and face done, and I think you have absolutely *killer* legs that look even better when they’re smoothed with shimmery pantyhose, but that’s still you, not a girl wannabe with fake boobs or something. Does any of that make sense?"
"Sure," he said, wrapping his arms around her folded ones. "In private, I’d do just about anything you wanted for no more reason than because you wanted it. That’s all I really need to know, but I think I even understand this. I guess I feel, or at least I’m beginning to feel the same way. I like looking as good as I can for you, but also for me. Things like big bright eyes and full, red lips are signs of excitement, and flattering to both of us since they show I’m interested in what you have to offer and vice versa. Smooth skin is healthy, being taller has all sorts of good connotations, lots of things are positive reinforcements totally aside from any gender issues."
"Right," she agreed. She squirmed a little on his embrace, not uncomfortable but feeling out the restrictions of the lines binding her arms. "I think this is just the opposite of that," she said, looking at her wrists. "I think my . . . problem is that I feel like I have too many choices. No matter what I choose to do for you, there are always other options that might have been more effective, more desirable to you."
"Geez, woman, I already want you so bad I walk around bent over half the time," Logan claimed, trying to get off a topic about his gorgeous wife’s nonexistent inadequacies.
She giggled in his arms and said, "I know, dear, but this is not really about you, it’s about me. Even though you’ve never complained, never given me cause to feel you were disappointed, still a lot of the time I feel I should have done *more* to please you."
"And I should have done more to please *you*," he said, interrupting her.
"I know," she agreed, surprising him, "but that’s because there’s no limit on how much we *should* do for each other, only limits on how much we *can* do for each other, and that’s the problem."
She leaned over to kiss him lightly, then said, "And the solution as well. If I’m limited in some way, something that’s not really my choice, then that’s as real as if I had restricted myself by choices I *had* made, only it’s not my fault. Does *that* make any sense to you?"
He nodded slowly. "So, you don’t really want to be tied up, so much as . . . limited in the choices you can make?"
Jayla nodded in her turn. Logan looked at her, though, and said, "But you make such terrific choices! You never fail to excite me. You look just incredible. Even things like, well, that corset thingy and your long fingernails, they all push buttons in me I never even realized were there, or at least, never realized how intensely they were wired into my, um, core. How does keeping you from being so creative help anything?"
"It helps because it takes the pressure off me," she said.
"But, isn’t it frustrating not to be able to move your arms? I’d have been screaming to be let loose by now."
She nodded thoughtfully. "I guess," she said, "it’s just that it’s even *more* frustrating to feel like I’m missing out on some opportunity to be even more appealing to you. I know you’re not complaining, it’s just me. Call me a perfectionist, if you want."
"Perfect, more like," her husband said, reaching up to leave a dark lip mark on her porcelain cheek. He had forgotten a kiss from his lips could do that now, and it made him chuckle. Before she could ask him what was so funny though, he grinned and said, "Here we sit, me wearing makeup and earrings, you with your arms tied to your nipples, and you’re expecting things to make sense?"
"Well, when you put it that way . . . ," she said, smiling. But she continued, "Actually, it does and it doesn’t. Make sense I mean."
She interrupted herself to struggle to her feet. "Wait a minute. I can show you part of what I mean."
Walking into the dining room where the unopened envelope still lay on the table, she almost reached for it. A warning twinge stopped her just before she pulled too hard on her sensitive buds and she bent carefully to pick it up without extending her arms. Once she had it safely in her hand she took it back to her waiting husband.
"Here, you open it," she directed. "I’m a little tied up right now."
"I can’t believe you said that," he groaned.
Jayla laughed and said, "I’ve been waiting all evening for a chance."
Logan took the envelope from her and opened it, to find a single sheet of paper inside. He flipped it over and back to see if he was missing anything, but there were only two words on the page. "You choose."
"But this is the same as the other one."
"Exactly," she said, sitting back down on his lap. "The whole point of this, for me at least, is that *you* choose what we do when we’re, ah, experimenting. I would like it if I don’t even have the choice on whether or not to do what you say, like now, with my arms restricted. I tried to think up some provocative outfits . . "
"With great success," he interrupted her.
" . . . but I’m about out of ideas," she continued. "I could go spend a lot of money on fetish outfits - you wouldn’t *believe* what some people find arousing - but that might be wasted if I don’t, as you said, ‘push your buttons’.
"So you want me to decide what we do, all the time?" he asked.
"No, not *all* the time. I meant what I said earlier about trying to understand you well enough to find interesting, um, ideas even if you don’t ask for them." The she paused and a wicked little sparkle showed in her eyes. "You never know what I’ll be wearing when you come home to me . . . or *not* wearing. But I really need you to, um, I guess just take charge some times."
"Hmmm," he mused. "Maybe. You have to understand that if I think you’re not enjoying something, then it really spoils my enjoyment. Like now. I feel like I ought to untie you, like you can’t possibly enjoy that."
"But I do," she protested. "It’s fascinating to me. There is a constant . . . annoyance that keeps me so focused on my restrictions that in a strange sort of way I can relax. I don’t have to worry about anything else, just about the, um, new boundaries on me."
He just shook his head, but he wrapped his arms around her and held her tightly. "If you say so."
Jayla relaxed into his arms, tucking her head in the cradle of his neck, and sighed with ostentatious contentment. Then she giggled to show she knew she wasn’t fooling him, yet at the same time her laughter showed there was an underlying truth as well. She lifted her lips to start nibbling at his neck and chin, which got her a softer, more interesting target when his own dark lips encompassed hers.
If Logan expected their next few minutes to be softly romantic, his raven-haired temptress surprised him again. She squirmed in his arms until he released her, then struggled to her feet.
"What’s wrong?" he asked.
"If you don’t know, then I’m not doing something right," she pouted very fetchingly.
Spreading her legs, which caused her brief skirt to rise up until her feminine charms were just beginning to peek out at him, she straddled his lap and started sensually riding his hidden but stone-hard pillar.
"You are amazing," he breathed.
"Glad you noticed," she laughed, leaning over her still-crossed arms to kiss him. Squirming even more provocatively, she said, "If you’re waiting for me to take your jeans off, we’ll be here a while."
He didn’t - wait, that is - but they were indeed in that room for a long, delicious while.
When Logan woke the next morning, his first sight was the smiling eyes of his beautiful wife looking down at him, her fingers idly caressing her own turgid nipple.
"Good morning," she said.
"What’s wrong?" he asked in alarm.
"Nothing," she said easily. Then she realized what she had been doing while she watched him and laughed at herself. "I’m fine. More than fine, in fact. When you pulled those little rubber bands off me last night, I thought I’d died, then I just KNEW I had gone to heaven. My world has *never* been rocked like that. She leaned down and kissed him, then pulled back and said, "I just felt like looking at you a little. You really are good-looking. Have I mentioned that?"
"Ha! I’ll bet I look like something you’d use to frighten kids this morning."
"You’re beautiful to me," she murmured, kissing him. Then she giggled and said, "But I *do* like the earrings."
His hands flew to his ears where the golden loops still hung. Though small and tastefully understated for a woman, they were quite noticeable for a man. He smiled and leaned over her so that they dangled above her face and said, "Only for you, love."
Her answering smile made the sunlight streaming in the room seem to fade to insignificance. Instead of expanding on the intimacy his smile invited though, she abruptly sat up in bed almost knocking him onto his back.
"Are you willing to try something for me?" she asked.
Logan just laughed and wiped a smudge of mascara from his lashes onto his finger and held it out to her.
Caught in a too-obvious question, Jayla’s face flushed but she kept on with her idea. "I know I told you last night that I didn’t really want to feminize you . . . "
"But you changed your mind?" asked Logan, surprised.
"Well, yes and no," she said, not really clarifying anything. "I’ve been thinking . . "
"Uh, oh," interrupted Logan, then ducked as she grabbed a pillow to swat at him.
Before she finished her swing, though, she laughed and said, "You might be right. Anyway, I was thinking about this Tyler person you were telling me about."
Logan nodded as she continued, "You say that he, um, that as, uh, Tylara, she was really convincing?"
"Absolutely. Not in your class for beauty, of course, but neither is anyone else. She was very pretty, though."
The compliment earned him another smile, but he had to take a quick one because she was just as quickly back on her topic. "Here’s the deal, then. I was thinking about that, and about the way the kids hassled us last night. Now, you know I *never* want you to be embarrassed or feel humiliated, or anything like that, right?"
At his nod she continued, "But you also know I like your hair down, looking all sleek and swingy, and I like your eyes bright and your lips full and I *love* your killer legs . . . "
"So? I mean, I appreciate the compliments and all, but what’s your point?"
"Well, even though I know you say you can just blow off anyone else’s opinion, my point is, ‘why bother?’ If you’re going to wear makeup and earrings, and if you’re going to let me see your legs, especially wearing sleek stockings, then if we just sort of completed the picture, I could have what I want, even in public, and no one would hassle you anyway. Why put up with the hassle at all, if you really don’t care what anyone else thinks?"
"So you *do* want to feminize me?"
"Not really," she said, shaking her head. "But I do think that, um, feminizing the way you look, not the real you underneath, just the way you look, might be fun. We could go out and do, ‘girl things’ together, with you looking your very best for me, and me looking my best for you, and have a lot more fun than just sitting around the house."
"I’m not sure I see the difference," Logan said, "between what you want and the sort of feminization you say you’re not interested in".
"Maybe there isn’t any," Jayla admitted cheerfully. "But I don’t really care. I guess what I’m saying is that I’d like to avoid any more scenes like last night with those kids, but I’m not willing to give up doing things with you in public, and I’m not willing to give up seeing you looking your best. The only answer I can see is for you to pass as a woman so we don’t get hassled by anyone. I know you could. You’d be gorgeous. Will you give it a try?"
"Define ‘try’," he said.
"Oh, um, yeah. Good point. Well, how about this? Makeup and hair we already know about, so after we get cleaned up, instead of putting on your jeans, I’ll get you a skirt. Your hips are smaller than mine, so that’s not a problem and your waist isn’t that bad. Oh, and a top. I have several sweaters that will fit. Then we’ll go shopping!"
"Oh, joy," he said dryly. But the light in her eyes was more than enough inducement to play her little game. His own smile sent his real message of acceptance, and Jayla bounced out of bed with a bright laugh.
"Oh, no!" she said, stopping abruptly. "I don’t have any shoes that will fit you."
Before Logan could say anything, not that he had any real ideas, she was bouncing happily again. "That’s okay," she said. "You can wear your boots and jeans to start out with, with a sweater and one of my jackets. Our first stop can be a shoe store! Then we’ll buy you a skirt of your own."
He just shook his head ruefully and started to get out of bed. A glimpse in the mirror showed that his appearance had indeed deteriorated from the carefully crafted image he had created at the start of the previous night’s adventure. Still, all he really needed to know was that his bouncing bride wanted him to do this. He could handle a little laughter if it didn’t work out.
An hour later, laughter wasn’t what he was worried about. Like a lot of good art the magic was in the details. Nothing Jayla had done to him was dramatically different from what he had done before. Small differences added up to a dramatically different impression, though. His eyebrows had been thinned just a little, and his eyeshadow tones just a bit wider in range. His lips were richer, brighter in a glossy shade of red dark enough not to clash with his hair. The waves in his hair were just a bit tighter, his earrings just a bit bigger, his . . . well, everything was changed, yet nothing looked changed. It was as though the subtle refinement of his appearance had been honed over years of practice into casual beauty.
And beautiful he was. It was still an elegant look, more like a high-fashion model than Jayla herself presented and very distinct from the elfin charm he had seen in Tylara. But it was distractingly pretty, at least in his own eyes.
"Ha! I knew I still had this," Jayla said, turning from an energetic rummage through her dresser. She held up a white barrette that she quickly positioned in Logan’s hair to hold the lock that swept over his forehead. "There," she said. "That shows your earrings nicely and still lets the thickness of your hair drape properly."
"Whatever you say," Logan murmured dazedly. "I can’t argue with your sense of style, not when you can work this kind of magic."
"Hardly magic," she disagreed. "Just common, everyday enhancements that all us girls do, right?"
"Um, sure," he said, smiling.
He took one last look in the mirror, still amazed at what he saw, but he allowed himself to be led away by his enthusiastic wife to finish dressing. Jayla babbled along with how good he looked, then in one of those breathtakingly abrupt changes of pace that seemed to have infected her that day, she stopped.
"I can’t keep calling you ‘Logan’ all day, and besides, we both need to start thinking of you as a girl. Don’t you agree?"
"Whatever you say," replied her transformed companion.
"Okay," Jayla continued. "From now on, you’re, um, how about . . .
‘Lauren’?"
"Good enough," Lauren replied.
"Right," Jayla said. "Now, lets see, oh yeah, you need to work on your voice a little. It’s not bad, really. The voice tones are high enough that there are a lot of women like that."
"Kinda sexy, actually," she said, interrupting herself with a side observation. "Just speak softly, and try to be, um, more animated in your tones."
"Like this?" Lauren asked, laughing. "I just *know* we’ll find the most *darling* pair of shoes."
"Perfect," Jayla giggled. "You’ll knock their socks off."
"Speaking of socks," she continued with another abrupt change of attention. "Even though *I* will be wearing stockings, you can wear pantyhose if you insist."
"I think it would be better," Lauren said. "For purposes of hiding my, um, secret if nothing else."
"Oh, yeah," Jayla agreed, giggling again.
The one hitch in her cheerful progress was when Lauren put on the snug sweater Jayla had pulled out for her. "Damn," Jayla said softly.
"What’s wrong?"
Jayla sighed and put her chin in her hand as she thought through the problem. "I figured you could just look like you were, um, not, ah, very well endowed, but that’s not what comes across," she explained.
Lauren looked at the reflection in the mirror, sharing a vague feeling of wrongness without knowing the exact cause. "Well, I’m *not* very well endowed," she agreed.
"Yeah, but lots of slender girls are in the ‘why bother’ category with bras," claimed Jayla. "Hell, most of the time unless I’m running or something, *I* don’t really need one."
"As I’ve been demonstrating to you lately," she continued, proving her point with a sensuous stretch. "But you just have too much muscle definition for a snug sweater, and I’m afraid a really bulky one would hide your slender waist and not look right either."
"So what do you recommend, oh mistress of magic?"
Jayla laughed at the compliment, but she gave a quick stage curtsy before plunging once again into her dresser. "I’m afraid the solution is obvious, and it’s the same one girls have been using since Ooga chased Shooga around the cave."
With another crow of triumph, Jayla pulled a tangle of peach-colored fabric from her drawer. "Here you go," she said, handing it to Lauren.
‘It’ was a significantly padded bra. "From my sweater advertisement days," explained Jayla. "We’ll help it with a little additional magic I learned along the way. Then you’ll look just fine."
"Right," Lauren said doubtfully, but she was *way* past stopping now.
Her curiosity demanded they finish, if nothing else.
She finally drew the line, though, when Jayla wanted to add false fingernails. "Look, love, I’ll do it if you really want," Lauren said, "but do you really think it’s necessary?"
"Oh," Jayla said, visibly reining in her energy level. "Um, now that you mention it, no it’s not. You look terrific already."
"Thank you," Lauren replied demurely, eyes twinkling at the compliment, even as she glanced at herself in the mirror. In fact, she did look pretty good. The sweater displayed charms that, however artificial were nonetheless quite shapely. Her slender waist and slim hips - ‘boyish’ perhaps - were nonetheless a flattering counterpoint that seemed more a sign of health than any lack of curves. Even in jeans Lauren was unmistakably a girl.
"Perfect," Jayla said, her enthusiasm restored. Grab my gray jacket, I’ll take the black one, and, oh yeah, use this purse."
Lauren took the unfamiliar accessory and just looked at it for a moment before smiling and moving to her own personal items. Changing things from pockets in a jacket to pockets in the purse left plenty of spare space for the ‘extra’ things Jayla insisted had to remain in the bag.
"Ready?" Jayla finally asked.
"Are you kidding?" Lauren replied. "I’m scared to death, but I doubt I’ll get any readier."
"Really?" asked Jayla, frowning. "I really don’t want you do to anything you don’t want to do."
"Actually," Lauren admitted. "I *do* want to do this, now that we’ve come this far. I, um, want to see if it works as well as it looks like it should in the mirror."
"It’ll be even better. You’ll see," promised Jayla.
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