Abstract: Originally entitled "The Feminine Widower", this story describes the process through which a professor, having lost his greatly loved wife, comes to a second life of less tension in women's dress, in a feminine body, and married to a transsexual. This story is greatly enhanced and extended from the earlier version.

Acknowledgement: Thanks to Jenny Walker for some help in criticizing this story. Thanks especially to Jill M., who took the trouble to email to suggest some ways to strengthen this story after I posted the first version on Crystal's storysite.

 

Relaxant

by Suzi Page

 

My name is Cy, but I now go by Cyndi. Two years ago I returned home from dropping my children off at the airport and sank into my chair. I felt such great grief and such high tension that I could barely move. At age 64, I had just lost my wife Marsha to a sudden heart attack. She was the love of my life! I had no idea how I was going to manage without her. I was a successful college professor and had depended on her for love, for companionship, and for running the day-to-day aspects of our life.

I had quite broken down at the memorial service for Marsha two days before in the southern Pennsylvania college town where I lived and taught at the local university. Our two daughters, Tisha and Jena, and Tisha's husband and daughter had been with me for a week. They had tried hard to comfort me, but I just could not sleep, so great was my grief and tension. They had counseled me that I had better take the 3 months of the university's summer break as a bereavement leave. But they had to get back to their own lives and had just left to return home far across the country.

As I sat devastated in my chair, I wondered, "How can I move forward? What can I do to release this enormous tension and grief? What has helped me respond to pressure in the past? Drugs have never been effective in dissolving tension. Visualization has helped, though." Letting my imagination run free, I saw myself with a curvy chest decorated by a bra and felt much more peaceful.

"The few times I could wear a bra," I thought, "I have always felt such a sense of peace. I guess it is related to how I always appreciated Marsha's soft breasts and loved caressing them."

I'd crossdressed intermittently since I was a young teenager. Yet, for all but the first three years of my marriage to Marsha, I'd worn a beard because Marsha and I both thought I looked best that way. Marsha had trimmed it and had cut my curly dark brown hair whenever it grew too long. Actually, for one-week while Marsha was away visiting her mother, I'd removed it because I'd decided to shop en femme. Right after she left, I'd shaved my beard off, done my makeup, and put on the women's clothes in my stash under floorboards in the attic. During that week I'd found myself extremely excited and yet at peace, as I walked in our house, looking again and again at the feminine person I saw myself as in the mirror.

On the day after Marsha left, I'd shaved very closely and put on my bra, panties, waist cincher, and black knee high stockings. In front of the bathroom mirror I'd smeared on coverstick foundation to fully conceal what remained of my facial hair, carefully drawn on eyebrow pencil, brushed on blusher, and covered that with a layer of face powder. I'd applied lipstick with all the precision I could muster. Then I had taken out our iron and ironing board and removed the wrinkles from my simple pullover blouse with a slit top closed by a spaghetti tie and my women's mauve pants with narrowing legs. Excitedly I'd put on these clothes over my pretty feminine underthings, donned ballet skimmer shoes, and glued on red press-on nails.

Thus fully dressed as a woman, I'd gone out to the car to be in public en femme for the first time. With much trepidation I'd driven to the next city to shop in an outlet mall. Getting out of the car was a great high mixed with great tension. But I did it!

No one commented when I walked into a women's clothing outlet store! I tried on a skirt in the dressing room and had to deal with one of my nails falling off. Without the courage to face the person at the cash register, I bought nothing. However, in the shoe outlet that I went to next, I tried on some gold high heels that were so gorgeous that I actually bought them, worrying every moment what would be said.

On the next evening I'd gotten my courage up and attended a movie en femme, even using the one-toilet ladies room at the theater. I was extremely afraid of what law I might be breaking and sat paralyzed in the booth as two teenager girls came in to fix their makeup and then left.

Those two days of exhilaration had been a combination of peace when I was home and great tension over exposing this feminine aspect of myself. That was the only time I had been in public en femme and the only week I was without my beard in the last thirty-eight years.

When I had picked up Marsha on the next day, of course in my male clothing, she had looked at me quizzically, not quite realizing what was different. Then she exclaimed, "You shaved off your beard! Why?"

I had explained, "I wanted to see how I would appear without a beard, after all this time with a beard." However, we both agreed I would look better if I'd grow it back. "Now," I thought, "with Marsha gone, I have to find another way to keep my appearance satisfactory."

As I considered what to do, in the very analytical fashion that I had developed as a mathematical sciences professor, I thought, "I look best when I have breasts. Moreover, it will really help me remember Marsha if I give my chest her rounded shape."

"So," I asked myself, "perhaps I should put on one of her bras to help me remember her. Her drawer is full of them, but they are far too small for me, and the discomfort of wearing them would surely make me even more unhappy. I guess that I had better wear one of the few bras in my own stash." So I climbed the attic ladder-stairs and pulled out my feminine items from under the floorboards where they had lain for all but a few dozen days of the past many years.

"Hey," I realized, "I no longer have to hide these clothes!" Marsha had been completely unaccepting of my need to crossdress. She had not even been willing to discuss the issue when she had discovered part of my stash, and I'd had to retrieve it from the rubbish barrel where she had thrown it. So for over forty years of marriage I had actually worn women's clothes only a few times a year. I had hated hiding part of myself from my wife, but she had made it clear that she found crossdressing hateful and that bringing it up would put our relationship in peril. At the same time I understood that I could not go permanently without dressing. Indeed, I found myself swinging between the more common tension of not being able to wear feminine clothes and the tension of fearing I would get caught during the few times I was clad in my pretty wardrobe.

When Marsha had been away for periods of a few days visiting her elderly mother, I had spent the evenings and weekends in feminine attire. When I'd shopped for a Christmas present for Marsha, often a sexy nightgown or panties, I would sometimes buy a bra or pair of panties for myself as well. I had also enjoyed looking at the holiday shoes available to women in the discount shoe store at the outlet mall when I was shopping for presents for Marsha. However, I had seldom bought any of those lovely shoes, partially because I was embarrassed to try them on. Two Christmases previous, I had come upon some lip gloss for $1 in the dollar store and had excitedly bought it for myself and tried it in the locked bathroom of our home.

"Now," I thought, "things are different from any other time in my life." I lived alone in a pleasant house in a quiet neighborhood with large, 1-acre lots with trees between them. I was financially well off as a result of a company I and some colleagues had founded on the basis of my scientific developments. Tragically, my wife was no longer around.

"So why not dress in a feminine way if it helps me deal with my grief?" I asked myself.

My earliest memories of feminine feelings were of when I was four. I vaguely remembered repeated dreams in which I was sleeping in a drawer in pink girl's clothes. When I was a teenager, I tried some of my mother's clothes, only a few times, and when I got a summer job at age 16 with a company selling clothing to people at their homes, I borrowed some of the inventory and, at night in the cellar of my parents' home, experienced stockings and dresses that I would not otherwise have been able to obtain. I remembered the serious tension I felt while taking these clothes away from the office, returning them, keeping them hidden in my parents' attic, and trying them on in the cellar in the middle of the night.

During college I had always had a roommate, so crossdressing was not an option, except for once or twice while my roommate was away. On those occasions I had tried nail polish overnight. And then I was married, with the restrictions that that brought. In the fifteen years after Marsha had found my stash and had shown extreme distress, she might have suspected that I had a stash somewhere. She saw that I spent undue time on the web looking at something that entranced, even addicted me. Yet I could not come out and say I wanted to dress in feminine clothes, for fear that our otherwise wonderful marriage would be affected. A couple of years ago I had taken the COGIATI test on line, and it had concluded I was an androgyne, a conclusion I found accurate.

"So now, if I have to suffer the heartbreak of living without Marsha," I thought, "at least I can be comfortable wearing my feminine garments. Moreover, I can wear some of her clothes in her memory."

Her full wardrobe of clothes was in her drawers and our closet, and while many of them would not fit me, I figured I could wear one of her scarves or a nightgown or some cardigans or some flowery sweatshirts or lots of other possibilities. "Even many of her panties may fit," I thought, "though they are strictly one size too small."

So it was that, home just a few hours from dropping off the "kids", I first drew on a deep pink pair of my panties and strapped on a matching bra. The bra I chose was a beautiful 38B with removable narrow elastic pink straps and molded cups faced by pink embroidery and scalloping at the top of the cups. I had bought that bra two Christmases ago while shopping for my wife's present. Though there was still tightness in my throat at the checkout counter, I was struck then with how much less tension I'd felt buying a bra then than at earlier times in my life.

In the cups of my bra I placed the breast-enhancing pads I had bought years ago. Then I put my male shirt and pants back on. The result was that my shirt took on a very non-male shape. The other result was a real sense of peace and pleasure for me. As I prepared dinner for myself, I could not keep my eyes off the very apparent roundings in my chest. This took my attention away from my grief. All this led me to conclude, "For the bereavement leave that I am taking from the university, I'd like to always wear a bra and make my chest shape so pretty. Yet," I wondered, "how can I do this without creating the other tension of exposure?"

After dinner I brought the rest of my feminine clothes down from the attic where I had hidden them, pleased by the fact that they would never have to be scrunched together up there again. To make space for my lingerie, my pantyhose, and stockings, I found drawers in Marsha's dresser that I could clear of clothes that I could not fit into. I'd offer those to Tisha and Jena. Likewise, I removed from the closet Marsha's dresses that were too small for me and dedicated that space to Cyndi's clothes; I had used the name Cyndi on line for years. I hung my nightgown and nylon robe there ready for sleep time. They hung next to the pretty robes I had given Marsha, so I kind of felt one with her, whom I still deeply loved.

I put my soft satin bra, my cross-strap pink wonderbra, and my white longline bra into the drawer. I put my small collection of panties, my one full slip and one half slip, and my lacy camisole into the next drawer.

I added my small collection of jewelry to Marsha's large collection in her jewelry box. A survey of her jewelry revealed that a few of Marsha's pieces could fit me but that most of the bracelets, necklaces, and rings were too small and her pierced earrings were not usable, since my ears, like almost all males in my generation, were not pierced. My own pieces were limited to one pair of clip-on gold hoop earrings, two necklaces, and two rings. One necklace was a long string of large faux pearls, and the other was a multistrand short faux pearl bauble. One of the rings had a rhinestone-encrusted heart on it, and the other had a pair of stones: blue and clear.

"My, I have some ironing to do," I noted, looking at my three skirts and five blouses. After preparing the iron, I picked up the first blouse, black with a multicolored flower print, long-sleeves, and buttons up its front to its high-collared neckline. Admiring it and remembering the numerous times I had worn it with my short pearl necklace peeking from under the collar at the back and appearing at my neck, I began to iron it and then hung it in Cyndi's new closet space. I picked up my silvery grey satiny finish pullover blouse with shirred collar that closed with three buttons in the back. It had long sleeves with satin cuffs that I had loved to see gleaming at my wrists. As I ironed the heavy wrinkles out, the blouse became truly beautiful to me. After hanging it up, I picked up my white rayon blouse. It was low cut, had full long sleeves, front buttons, and a large lacy collar that hung down to below breast level. As I ironed it, I remembered how my white lacy bra showed through this pretty, feminine blouse and how my long pearls hung above my neckline.

I hung up the third blouse and picked up my white, medium-sleeved polyester blouse with a scoop neckline. After ironing and hanging up this blouse I found my white, cotton tanktop, installing it in one of Cyndi's new drawers." I'll not only be more at peace with these clothes on, but I'll save myself a lot of ironing work by having these pretty clothes hanging up," I concluded.

I also found the purple, shiny dickie that I had sometimes worn to cover the hair on my chest when wearing a blouse or dress with a low neckline. I hung my one dress and the beautiful red evening gown I had picked from a rack at the PTA Thrift Shop some years ago, thinking that I might iron them later. I realized that my legs looked very masculine, so street-length dresses were not very attractive on me. And while I once could squeeze into that evening gown, I could not fit into it now, so I hung it way in the back of the closet.

Two of the skirts that I took out and ironed were long, entirely or mostly covering my legs. One was white, buttoned up the whole front, and fell to my lower calf. The other was a brown and green paisley with an elastic waist that was of full length. Still, all in all, I preferred pants, both for convenience and looks.

I took out my blue pants with a narrow shiny black alligator belt and my brown leather pants and hung them on their hangers. The blue pants had been a piece of apparel that I had commonly worn during my dress-up times in the past few years. "Wearing these pants, with their tapered legs and high rise, has always made me feel attractive," I mused. "Some mornings when Marsha was at work at her preschool and I could work at home, I've loved to walk around the outside of the house on our quiet street in a bra and panties, a blouse, these pants, and a pair of heels. While it made me feel pleasantly feminine and looking at my reflection in our house's windows was a real turn-on, I always was keenly attuned every minute to the possibility of some car coming down the street or a walker appearing because then I had to escape to the back yard or into the house. I need to avoid that kind of tension in my present state. I wonder if looking so feminine that no one will take me as a crossdressing man would do that."

I took the size 10˝ and 11 women's shoes I had filled a heavy plastic bag with and placed them on the floor of my closet. I had once thought my size was 10˝ but had found that the mall stores, to which I had been largely restricted in shopping, did not carry that size, so I'd bought size 11s. However, I had recently measured my foot and found that my correct size now was 11.

I had always admired the beauty of women's high-heeled shoes. I remembered as a boy being at orchestra concerts with women soloists where I admired their shoes while enjoying the music. Among my far from negligible collection of shoes that I had brought down from the attic were two pairs of flats: a pair of navy blue skimmers with a ˝-inch heel and that pair of gold slip-ons with a 1-inch heel. There was a pair of multicolored strappy sandals, as well. There was a pair of black patent leather 2-inch heels and a pair of white spikes with 4-inch heels. There was a pair of platform fashion boots with 4-inch heels. And there was a pair of white spikes with 4-inch heels and scalloped sides. I had loved wearing the boots and the spikes when I could but had found them both very tiring on my legs. "Now I might get my muscles used to them," I thought, and I put on the white spikes.

I took out my cosmetics and put them into the drawer Marsha had used for hers. I could certainly still use some of her leftovers, and an unopened compact with powder would be particularly useful. From my own stash I had four lipsticks, one tube of lip gloss, two bottles of nail polish, an eyebrow pencil, a bottle of eyeliner, a container of three colors of powdered eye shadow, and a container of four colors of creamy eye shadow that made my eyelids shiny.

After all of my work, I drew on a light pink lipstick and put on a baseball game. I was impressed with the combination of enervation and relaxation that I felt as I sat in front of the TV looking down my legs at my white high heels. I was struck, "Gee, I can savor this feeling for as long I want!"

When the game was at the seventh inning stretch, I stood up in my heels but then felt tired and decided to prepare to go to bed. I took off all of my male clothes but left my bra and breast pads on. Then I put on my white nylon nightgown and realized, "I will never need to wear men's pajamas again." Over my nightgown I put on the matching nylon robe, attaching the pearlized button through the little elastic loop, emphasizing my bust. As I lay on my too empty bed watching the bedroom TV, I enjoyed the slinkiness of my nightclothes. I drifted off to sleep with the TV still on.

In the morning I awoke with my robe still on over my nightgown, sad at being alone but happy with the feeling of my nightclothes. Wanting to slip out to get the newspaper lying at the end of our long driveway but have no one see me in my feminine nightclothes, I slipped into my skimmers and then put on Marsha's raincoat over my peignoir. I had done that many times during the days Marsha was away. "But," I realized, "there is less reason to hide the way I choose to clothe myself than when my wonderful Marsha was living." Then I had second thoughts, worrying, "My professional reputation could well be affected by what the neighbors see if the word gets out from them." So I watched out that no one was coming past in the street, rushed out, picked up the newspaper, and hurried back up the path to the house.

After drinking my coffee and reading the newspaper, I thought, "What shall I wear for the day? No doubt, pretty nylon underwear." So I pulled on a pair of my shiny, purple panties and left on my pink molded bra. After admiring the fit of my bra to my chest, I found myself drawn to put on a piece of Marsha's clothes, in her memory. I got out her beige pullover turtleneck blouse and put it on over my bra. I was about to put on my male pants, socks, and shoes when I thought, "I would like my toes to be prettier, and now I can comfortably do that." So, in a way practiced over the years, I placed pieces of toilet paper between my toes and polished my toenails with my shimmering pink polish. I watched a bit of ESPN while letting the polish dry well, and then I put on a second coat. What a rush I got looking at my lovely pink, shiny toes on the ottoman while watching the TV.

After my polish was fully dry, I decided, "It would be shame to hide those pretty toes." So I got a pair of Marsha's tan knee highs from the drawer of her, now Cyndi's, dresser and slid them on, noticing how the shininess of my toenails shone through the transparent nylon. I decided to make my pants consistent with my feet, so I tucked my penis under in my panties and pulled on my blue pants, noting again how the fly started higher than I was used to and how the waist came higher than in my male pants. Also, I closed the alligator finish belt, which was positioned in the pant loops in the feminine direction. I slid my slippery feet into my multicolored sandals and donned my two rings, one on the ring finger of each hand. I got my glossy pink lipstick out of my cosmetics drawer, and looking into the bathroom mirror with its bright light, I applied this lipstick to my lips. The view of myself with a rounded chest and shiny pink lips was exciting and yet comforting to me.

As I finished reading the newspaper, I felt a sense of peace and yet real excitement that I would be dressed in this way all day. But then it came to me, "I need groceries and, if I am going to dress in this feminine way for the coming weeks, I need more clothes."

Grocery shopping came first. I began to feel the tension of exposure as I contemplated what to wear while shopping. "I don't want to change to male clothes because it would increase my feelings of grief," I thought in my very analytical manner. "At the same time, I am going eventually return to my job at the university, and I mustn't bring attention to myself. I guess that I should take off my lipstick and put on socks and male shoes over my stockings. Since I have no back pockets in my pants, and need to wear my own raincoat over the rest of my clothes to hide my shapely chest, I'll have to put my wallet in my raincoat pocket." As I looked at myself in the mirror before leaving to shop, I saw that the turtleneck was apparent but considered, "Men wear turtlenecks, too. And although a person studying me would see a more rounded top than expected and might be a bit surprised at my wearing a coat in the warm temperature, the shape of my chest is rather hidden. My pant legs taper more than men's pants would, but they are not too noticeable. My rings, on the other hand, are quite noticeable if someone looks, but I need to make this bow to Marsha's way of dressing, and I can live with the slight attention this might bring. No one would really think that a man was some kind of pervert just for wearing feminine rings."

I climbed into my car and drove the supermarket. I sat for a while, almost transfixed by the tension of my fear, before I got the courage to get out of the car, walk into the store, and take a cart. Pushing the shopping cart up and down the aisles, I found only one person possibly noticing anything unusual about my appearance, and they didn't say anything. Pretty soon, more than worrying about how I looked, I found myself uncomfortable in my clunky shoes, and this discomfort made me tense, and this tension brought my mind back to my grief over my loss of Marsha. This grief was my dominant emotion, and though the tension of discovery reappeared when the girl at the checkout counter looked at me funny upon noticing my feminine-style rings, more than anything I felt a need to overcome the grief brought on by wearing my men's shoes.

I felt so tense that on the way home that I drove to the local Payless store, walked in, and picked out a pair of women's oxfords that could hardly be distinguished from men's but were lighter in weight, had small platforms, and had a slightly higher heel than standard men's shoes. I left the store and went to the mall's men's room to put these shoes on. Immediately my grief subsided. The sound of my walking, in these shoes with rubber soles, was softer than it had been, and the feel was very pleasant.

When I got home with my groceries, I put my lipstick on again even before I put the groceries away. I decided to put on my boots with the 4-inch heels, too, reasoning that, besides their emotional effect, from my height of five feet ten I'd be able to reach the higher shelves in the kitchen better while storing the groceries.

It was obvious to me, "The shoes I've just bought are not fully going to do the trick of assuaging my grief while I am in public because, although they would not stick out as feminine footwear, they do not strike me enough as footwear Marsha would wear. I should look for a pair of women's shoes that would feel feminine enough to me by having an adequately high heel but that might be taken possibly as man's footwear by the casual observer."

Concerned at trying on even medium-heeled women's shoes in the community in which I worked, I shopped on websites that Google yielded with the search phrase "shoe women sale". After looking through a number of websites and dozens of pairs of shoes, I chose a pair to buy on the bamason website: brown slip-on loafers with wide 2 inch heels. The long search resulted from my criteria that the shoes feel feminine but not jump out as too feminine, be available in my women's size of 11 medium, and be sold at a good price. While I was on that website, I also found and ordered a pair of gold slides with 1˝-inch wedge heels that I would use as slippers. With further Googling, I placed an order for 10 pairs of black knee socks in my size from the www.appleseeds.com website. In net-shopping for these items, I took advantage of the fact that I could now buy feminine things on the web for the first time because I did not need to hide the records of the payments from Marsha. She had done all of our finances when she was alive.

I went downstairs and began to wash pots and pans. I enjoyed the appearance of my high-heeled boots, but after just 45 minutes on my feet, my legs began to be tired and painful. Disliking the pain and concerned that it might redirect my state of mind to grieving, I took off the boots and put on my pretty flats. I sat in my women's outfit, looking from time to time down my curvaceous chest, while paying some bills and balancing the checkbook. It felt so right that I appeared so feminine while doing this task, as Marsha had done just that for the last decades. "My fond memories of Marsha are so important to me," I thought. "I want to do things that remind me of her."

On that night I decided that, while I was waiting for my new shoes and socks to arrive, I should shop for more pairs of women's pants since that would be mostly what I planned to wear for outer-clothes bottoms and I couldn't be limited to wearing my single pair of cloth pants. So after breakfast on the next morning I put on my soft, lacy white bra without pads under Marsha's purple sweatshirt over my blue pants and deep green nylon panties. The sweatshirt was baggy enough that with the soft bra, my slight breast rounding would not show, though the rest of my clothes would look rather unmasculine. With these clothes I considered, "Where can I put my wallet?" I answered myself, "I can get one of Marsha's shoulder handbags and use it. After all, some men use handbags these days. On the other hand, if I am going to carry a handbag, I'd better take off my rings before I shop." So I looked through Marsha's large collection and chose a brown bag with a shoulder strap. I took off my rings and put my women's oxford shoes on over opaque black nylon knee-highs, and thus clad in only feminine clothes and carrying a shoulder-bag, I went to the mall in the neighboring city, judging that I was unlikely to be recognized there.

Beard and all, I went straight to the Misses section in each store I entered. I began to look for pants in size 16, tall, which I knew was my size, when my emotions got the better of me. God, I was tense about being discovered! But I soon began only to attend to my shopping. I found lots of choices, but I was really not interested in the many tan pairs that were for sale, since their color was so like what men wore. I liked the brighter colors and was also attracted to prints with flowers on them. I searched for tailored pants with lined tapered legs and leafed through many pairs on each rack that had my size.

In each store I selected at least three pairs of pants that attracted me, and I tried them on in the men's dressing room, even though the women's was the nearer place. I found myself feeling tense as I came out of the dressing room to look at the fit in the full-length mirror, as I was coming out of the men's dressing room with pants that were hard to take as men's. I was consistently worrying, "What will happen if someone calls me out on dressing in a feminine way or shopping for feminine garments?" But needing these pants to feel less tense at home, I endured the tension during my shopping.

I ended up buying 6 pairs of pants from three different stores. One pair was black, one a rich coffee brown, one light blue, one a deep pink, and one medium green with a small flower print. The final pair was powder blue Capri's; these had attracted my attention because it was turning summer and I felt they would be comfortable in the heat. In each store the checkout clerk seemed to wonder about this bearded man buying women's pants, but they were happy to have the sale and said nothing.

Upon my return home I was tired from all of my shopping but was excited about my new clothes. After putting my rings back on and putting on some lipstick, I again tried on each pair of long pants, this time while wearing my black patent leather dress heels, and I found my look very attractive. Then I tried on the Capri's while wearing my sandals but was jarred by hair on my exposed lower legs. While I washed out the bras and panties I had worn in the past three days, I decided that when I showered the next morning I would shave my lower legs up to the knee and shave my toes, as well, since they could be seen when I wore my sandals. "The shaved legs will not cause me embarrassment when I am dressed as a male," I reasoned, "for who is going to see my legs or my feet when I wear long pants and socks out in the world?"

So the next morning while going into the shower I picked one of Marsha's razors, soaped up my legs and toes, and shaved them clean. Since they stung a bit as I dried myself, I found some of Marsha's body lotion and applied it to my legs. "What a pretty scent, and how having it on helps me remember Marsha!" I thought. "I need to replenish the supply the next time I go shopping."

As I put on a clean pair of bright, shiny orange panties, I realized I also would need more panties and bras if I was not going to be washing clothes all the time. I had found good deals on pretty lingerie at a Burlington Coat Factory store 25 miles away, so after making myself breakfast and eating it, I drove there. I was wearing one of my new pairs of women's pants, the coffee colored ones, and my scoop neckline white blouse over my white lace-adorned satin soft bra without inserts so that my chest would not be obvious. Over that I had my trench coat, and I wore my men's socks, my women's oxford shoes, and no jewelry. Feeling pretty tense, I wondered, "Would buying women's lingerie looking like a man be any less discordant than buying them while showing the women's clothes I had on underneath my coat?" Still, I made my way to the bra section with only slight concern since it was just 10 o'clock so I was alone there. I loved looking at all of my pretty choices, and I chose 4 bras in my size, 38B, and two bra and panty sets. Three of the bras were of the same molded, embroidered style as my favorite bra, which I wore at home, and one was a black soft, satin bra like the one I was wearing but without the lace. The three molded bras were in yellow, purple, and gold, different colors from the few I had. The bra and panty sets had a lacy, satiny finish and soft bras. I found few more pairs of panties hanging on the panty rack. I noted to myself, "I like the rich colored panties more than white ones, and I prefer nylon panties decorated with bows or lace."

I figured, "I am going to have to suffer the embarrassment of checking these purchases out. I'll have to do that each time I shop, but there is no additional embarrassment related to how much I buy any one time. Therefore, I should buy as much of what I need as possible today." Therefore, I went to the section selling camisoles and slips, and realizing that my only camisole had a straight neckline that could be seen above some of my blouses' lowish necklines, I chose two white, nylon camisoles with a more plunging neckline. I thought about the slips but calculated that they were not needed with the pants I planned to wear.

Knowing that Marsha's nightgowns would wear out, I also chose two pair of pretty nylon nighties, a bright pink lacy knee-length summer nightgown and a royal blue full-length nightgown with an embroidered bosom and half-sleeves. I also shopped in the blouses section and chose a light blue dressy blouse in satin but with a sweetheart neckline, as well as a simple white women's oxford blouse with darts.

I brought this load of clothes all in feminine materials to the checkout counter, nervously folding them together so that others in line would see as little as possible of what I was purchasing. When it was my turn, I put them on the counter with quite a red face. The girl at the cash register looked askance at me, but she had been instructed that it was good for the store to make any sale, and she had experienced crossdressers buying lingerie before, so she took my credit card and said nothing. I was still torn some about the effect I was having on others, but even though I was feeling fright, I reasoned, "As long as no one who knows me finds out, I need to give priority to my memories of my lovely wife and her lovely shape."

For the next couple of days I just knocked about the house wearing entirely feminine clothes, mostly my new ones. I began each day in high heels, and when my legs got tired, I switched to my skimmers or sandals.

On the third day, while putting on my sandals, I decided to put on my new Capri's and my tanktop and to read on the chaise in my backyard. My house was fully screened by trees from all of my neighbors but one, and they were partially screened and seemed to be away at the time. So here I was relaxing in my women's summer clothes and lipstick and polished toenails and concentrating on getting a tan. I was thus able to keep my mind off of my loneliness.

At the same time, when I walked by the mirror in my tanktop, the jarring effect of my hairy chest and underarms brought my grief to the fore. Again I reasoned on the basis that no one else would see my chest and underarms but myself and concluded, "I need to shave off this hair, too."

When I went in to prepare dinner, I decided to cook in my lounging clothes and then dress more formally for dinner. This would involve putting on my high heels again, and I felt, "I can surely use more exercise of my leg muscles." I decided to wear my white skirt and a mauve cardigan that had been Marsha's and to wear my high-heeled boots to cover my masculine-looking lower legs. 'These boots are really pretty, to boot," I thought, smiling at my play on words. I put on a darker shade of lipstick and my lip gloss over it. Before I served the meal, I lit the candles, as Marsha and I always had done, and I sipped a glass of wine, remembering Marsha both from the ambience and from my feminine appearance. What calmness I felt!

During my shower on the next morning I reshaved my legs and shaved off my chest hair and underarm hair. I found my underarms to smart, and I found it peculiar to have my deodorant go on my smooth skin, but I figured "Marsha was used to that, so I can become used to it, too." And putting on my tanktop, I was really pleased at how my skin looked around the strap-sleeves and neckline.

Later, as I lay again in the sun in my tanktop and Capri's, I noticed, "I am getting a tan in the places exposed by the tanktop. Still, when I go out, these places will be covered up, and no one will see them."

The shoes and the knee socks that I had ordered on the web both arrived via UPS just 5 days after I had ordered them. I excitedly put on a pair of the dark knee socks and my heeled loafers. From then on, during each day I began the day in my platform high-rise high-heeled boots and black knee socks. After my legs began to feel really tired, I switched to my slip-on loafers and continued my activities in those stable 2-inch heels. After lunch I again put on my boots and then switched back to the loafers when I got tired.

The next time I shopped for groceries, I wore my 2-inch heels and knee socks under my black feminine pants. I really worried what the other shoppers would think, but I was surprised to find I attracted no real attention, even though I was very aware of the signature sound of female shoes my heels were making. "Well, lots of men are wearing boots of the height of my shoes, and their heels are only somewhat thicker than mine," I concluded.

During the second week of my leave I shopped for lots of things that were missing from my meager supply of cosmetics. While I shopped, I always wore a bra and panties under my male outergarments. I bought eight different colors of lipstick, never before having had a chance to compare how different shades would look on me. Once I found the two shades that I particularly liked, I bought matching nail polish, as well as clear. Thereafter I always had clear fingernail polish on when I shopped, even though that, too increased my tension of being seen in feminine things. I bought a few tubes of transparent lip gloss to put over my color when I wanted to feel dressy.

When I was home I always had lipstick on, but I had not thought through what I would do when the doorbell rang. The first time that happened, I quickly found a Kleenex and wiped the lipstick off, but some of the color remained. I realized that the Jehovah's Witness would note something out of the ordinary from my curvaceous chest, so perhaps the lipstick issue was irrelevant. I took the decisive position, "People coming to my door will just have to deal with me as I am!" However, underneath I was nowhere near as confident as my self-directed bluster would indicate.

One evening, when refreshing my lipstick before dinner, I decided to decorate my face further and put on earrings. I put on my own clip-on gold hoops, but already during the meal, I found them to cause pain in my earlobes. To keep the memory of Marsha, I endured the slight pain. Marsha had always worn earrings; she even wore studs to bed.

One and one-half weeks after the memorial service the phone rang. Joe and Karen Parker, a couple with whom Marsha and I had been friends, were worrying about my welfare. They said that it was understandable for me to keep to myself for a few days but that I needed some social contact to help me adjust. "Adjust, indeed," I thought. I promised to call them back that evening with an idea of when to get together.

I had a long talk with myself as I considered what I should do when getting together with Joe and Karen. "Cyndi, you need to dress in your women's clothing during the bereavement period to mitigate your grief. If you are not going to be very lonely, you'd better tell close friends like Joe and Karen about what you are doing. You know them to be open-minded, and they'll keep confidential what you do not want others to know. Let them into your way of living." So with much apprehension I phoned them back and invited them to join me for dessert the next evening. I explained that they should come prepared for a surprise in my decision about what I was going to do for the future.

The next night I prepared for my scary trial. I put on my red pants and a yellow turtleneck over my gold molded bra and breast pads. I wore my high-heeled boots over my pant legs and knee high stockings. I wore lip gloss over dark red lipstick and shiny disk screw-on earrings, which Marsha had kept over the decades after she had had her ears pierced.

When Joe and Karen rang the doorbell, my heart began beating a mile a minute. But I opened the door and sang, "Ta Daa."

Joe and Karen were, of course, floored by my appearance. Before they could even ask "What's up?", I began to explain. "I just feel so tense and depressed these days in male clothes, but I find I can remember Marsha by wearing female clothes, and that makes me feel much better. If I must live without Marsha, I must be free to dress this way to help me remember her the way she was."

Joe and Karen were still very much taken aback, but Karen said, "I guess we understand." Though their faces retained a quizzical expression, neither of them objected outwardly. They quickly moved the conversation on to other things.

Right after Joe and Karen climbed into their car after their visit, they immediately began to discuss Cy's situation car. Karen said, "It is touching how much Cy loved Marsha, and I understand his need to deal with it by reminders of her."

Joe admitted, "Cy looked sort of attractive, but, boy, does he look weird. His male face, beard, and hair seemed out of place with lipstick on it and earrings on its side, and with a curvy prettily decorated body below."

Karen agreed. Still, she said, "Whatever it is he is going to do, we should support our friend by continuing our relationship and affirming his choice." Karen asked Joe, "What do you think about the possibility that, to lessen the clashes in Cy's appearance, I give him some dressing pointers?"

Joe was surprised by this possibility, but after a bit of thought, he told Karen, "I find all this really bizarre, but I admire you for your kindness."

Joe and Karen decided to invite me over for dinner on the following Saturday evening. They told me that I could dress however I was comfortable. With only a drive in my car between my house and Joe and Karen's I realized, "I will be able dress up with full femininity, as I want."

On that Friday morning as I thought about my upcoming evening, I decided I would wear my long skirt and my boots to the Parkers'. "The elastic waistline of the skirt is not particularly attractive," I said to myself, so I should buy a wide belt to cover it up." I decided to shop for the belt dressed more or less as I was, with clear nail polish, my blue pants, a light blue soft short sleeved sweater of Marsha's, and women's loafers. However, I took off my lipstick and put on a soft bra under my sweater so that my breast shape would not be so obvious. Clad in this way, off I went to the mall, and with the increasing femininity over my previous few trips out, my tension of appearance in public returned. Yet I walked into JC Penney's and found just the belt I wanted. Right out in front of the belt rack I found the courage to wrap it around my waist to see how it looked and fit. It was green, which would match my skirt, two inches wide and thus nothing like a belt a man would wear, and it had a large gold buckle embossed with a decorative swirl.

While I was choosing my belt, a girl, seemingly about six years old, came up to me and innocently said, "Mister, how come you are wearing ladies' clothes?"

I was surprised and a little mortified, but I answered, "Because I think they are pretty. Don't you?" The little girl nodded and seemed satisfied. I was impressed at how natural my response had been.

At 4pm on Saturday afternoon I decided it was time to prepare to dress myself for the dinner. After showering, I removed my clear nail polish and polished my fingernails with deep red polish, two coats. For the first time since Marsha's death, I put my white, low cut full slip on over my bra, with breast inserts, and pink panties. Over that I put on my white, rayon blouse with the lace collar and my paisley skirt. After reaching under my skirt to pull down my blouse all around, I pulled my new belt tightly around my waist, nipping it in more than I'd done since I'd begun my recent feminine dressing experience. I pulled on a pair of my knee socks and then zipped on my high-heeled boots. For my makeup I first put on some powder and lipstick. For the first time since Marsha's death I used my eyeshadow, eyebrow pencil, and eyeliner, making up my eyes dramatically with heavy blue on the eyelids, white above it up to my eyebrows, and grey outside the eyelids, extending my eyebrows, and drawing a dark line below my eyes. For jewelry I had the two rings I always wore, I put my long pearls around my neck, and I slipped Marsha's gold disk earrings centered with a blue stone over my earlobes and turned the screw to tighten them on my ears.

I brushed my hair and my beard, both still very much male attributes. Looking in the mirror, I said to myself, "I look more feminine than I ever have before, even though I am still wearing a beard." After sitting for some minutes to gather myself, I put my wallet and my lipstick and lip gloss into a small black patent leather purse that had been Marsha's. For the first time since Marsha's death, I climbed into my car fully decked out as a woman going to dinner would be and with a made up face, albeit a bearded one.

Arriving at the Parkers', I swung my legs out of my car and walked to the door, perched on my high heels. I found myself reasonably relaxed. Karen opened the door, smiled, and said circumspectly "How pretty your clothes are, Cy". I put down my purse on the hall table and made my way into the sun room, where I sat down, smoothing my skirt beneath me. Joe made a cocktail for the three of us, and we struck up a conversation on politics, obviously avoiding the main subject on everyone's minds.

After our talk about politics lost steam, Karen finally broached the overarching subject, "You are obviously rather relaxed in this situation of bereavement and the awkwardness of appearing in women's clothes with us. What it is about wearing clothes of a woman that relaxes you so?"

I considered for a moment and answered, "It's partially being like Marsha, partially feeling the nice materials, and partially relieving the pressure of performance as a male."

"The first and third objectives would be better reached if you lost the beard, don't you think?" asked Karen, and Joe nodded rather vociferously. The question surprised me, and I said, "I had better sit on the answer, so much has my beard been a part of me." The conversation went on to happenings among our friends.

After fifteen minutes in which I was quite distracted, I changed the subject, saying, "I guess that you two were right in your observation of how I might be even more comfortable without my beard."

"OK, Karen then responded, "I'd be happy to help you work on your facial appearance after you cut off your beard."

"No time like the present!" I replied, surprised at my reaction. "Joe, can I borrow a razor?"

"Let's eat first," suggested Karen, so we went to the table. I could hardly taste the food, so full was I of anticipation. But we spoke of anything but that. After we had dessert, Karen told Joe to get his razor, and he did so, though apparently with some reservations. I disappeared in the bathroom, and in ten minutes I reappeared, clean shaven. "You look a lot younger," the both agreed, "but your facial appearance is jarring because you've worn the beard forever." However, Joe noticed another problem, remarking with a barely disguised smirk, "If you want to appear more feminine, you are going to have to shave off those sideburns, too."

I had automatically shaved my face as a man would, and I realized how accurate Joe's comment was. Therefore, back I went into the bathroom and paid attention to carefully remove my sideburns but not to cut the hair from above that would hang over the sideburn area. When I reappeared, Karen said with a smile, "OK, Cy, let's work on that face some more."

Karen took me to her bedroom and sat me down in front of her vanity mirror. She noted, "You need to use a rather opaque foundation as the base of your makeup. I have a bottle that I bought for covering up pimples when I get them." She applied the foundation all over my face and sponged it over, and she then brushed on a little rouge on my cheeks. This was followed by some powder. Seeing myself in the vanity mirror, I was already amazed at the difference in how I looked – a whole lot more like Cyndi than Cy.

Karen suggested, "If you want to appear natural and remind yourself of how Marsha looked, you should make up your eyes in a more understated way than you have." After giving me some makeup remover to apply to my eye makeup, she coached me in how to apply the eye makeup more as a normal woman would, smudging here and brushing there.

After I refreshed my lipstick and lip gloss, Karen had a look at my hair. Marsha had cut my curly hair for our whole marriage, and she had not given me a haircut for the three months before she suddenly died. So I had a four-month growth, and I was lucky to still have a thick head of hair, though a rather high forehead. As Karen helped me comb my graying brown hair with a horizontal part at the top and with the hair in front of the part pulled forward, she noted "Your hair needs to be a bit longer to look as feminine as it might."

"A little patience will solve that," I thought. In any case, when I looked in Karen's full length mirror, I saw quite a feminine face, albeit one atop a somewhat too broad torso. And when they returned to the living room, Joe's eyes widened and said, trying to stay in my good graces, "Wow, how much prettier your face has become, Cy."

As the evening went on, Joe and Karen seemed to start to get used to my feminine appearance. After some heated discussion about our town's decision to widen Cobles Pond Road, I complained about the pain my screw-on earrings caused. Karen immediately responded, "You have found what all girls find. That's why we pierce our ears. Would you like me to do yours? I have some starter studs that our daughter used."

I had certainly not anticipated taking such a step. My main consideration was that the studs would have to stay in for a few weeks and make my appearance very androgynous, thus putting me at major risk for discovery and publicity. But the idea of being able to wear all of Marsha's earrings was so attractive to me that I pretty quickly assented. Karen went off to search the starter studs. After at least five minutes, during which I waited very expectantly, she called out, "Found them!" As she brought them out and showed them to me, my eyes were drawn to their shiny green stones.

Karen then got out a wide needle and sterilized it in the flame of a candle and some alcohol that she had dipped the stud posts in. She got a piece of cork in the drawer where they kept wine stoppers. Finally, she went to the fridge, got out an ice cube, and asked, "Ready?"

I steeled up my nerve, and Joe looked positively queasy. I turned my left ear toward Karen. She marked a place with a pen. She held the ice cube on my ear for 45 seconds, till it got somewhat numbed, placed the cork behind the ear, and swiftly jabbed the needle through my lobe exactly at the pen mark and into the cork. I jumped and yelled, "Ow!" "Be still," Karen said. "I still have to work the stud in." She pulled the needle out and started to work the stud into the hole that had been made. It took a bit of jiggling and caused me a little pain, since the stud was wider than the needle. But soon she attached the clip on the back of the stud and had me look at my ear.

"How beautiful!" I marveled.

Karen repeated the piercing and stud insertion with the right ear. I jumped a bit less, knowing what was coming this time. After two minutes I now had a pair of pretty stud earrings. Joe admitted that the whole process had made him a bit faint, but Karen and I were very pleased with the result. Karen put some alcohol on the piercings and told me, "Tomorrow without fail you need to buy some antibacterial solution at the drug store and apply it to your earlobes three times a day for two weeks to prevent infection."

At the end of the evening, I told Karen I could not thank her enough for her efforts on behalf of my psyche. As I walked out to my car, I realized, "My mind has so much been taken off of my concerns that I have not had a grieving moment all evening, nor have I felt the pain I normally feel when I wear my boots for any length of time."

Driving home, I could not wait to look in the mirror at myself again. When I did, I once more was excited by the prettily made up face with green studs on the side that looked back at me. I was so impressed that I prepared for bed by putting on the heart-decorated nylon sleep panties to my babydoll set and Marsha's slinkiest nightgown.

When I woke up from a very refreshing sleep, I said to myself, "Karen has made you very feminine looking with your new earrings. Let's keep the impression going by the way you dress yourself." So I dressed in my purple molded bra over my bra pads and buttoned a light violet cardigan of Marsha's over it. I practiced using eye makeup the way Karen told me. Marsha had not used foundation, so I could not try that. However, I did have a tube of coverstick that I spread about my face, and over it I used Marsha's powder. After putting on my shiny, mauve lipstick, I took off my red nailpolish and replaced it by clear.

After breakfast I figured that, per Karen's instructions, "I need to go to the store to buy disinfectant for my ears and foundation, rouge, and face powder." Then I worried a lot about how I could manage to shop. I argued analytically, "There is no way that you can shop in male clothing with your new green-stoned earrings. You'll be seen as a sissy and may even be in danger. You have a better chance of attracting little notice if you appear more uniformly feminine and leave your molded bra and pads on. Besides, you enjoy having pretty lips and nails and chest shape and would be quite tense without them."

I had the idea that perhaps putting on the auburn wig I had bought years ago might make me stand out less, but when I put it on, I saw a made up man in a bright wig. As the alternative, I combed my own hair the way Karen had tried, and this seemed to be less attention grabbing. I remembered the first time I had makeup on in public, when I had shopped completely en femme twenty years before while my wife was visiting her mom, and I recalled that few people seemed to have noticed me then, though a few clearly did. But then I had worn my wig. "So," I concluded, I may attract some attention if I go as I am, but, of all the ways I am willing to look, this is the way I will attract the least attention. In any case, I'll shop in the next town."

Appearing pretty much like Cyndi, I arrived outside the CVS store in the next town, and exited the car with great trepidation. I had no trouble walking in my high-heeled loafers, but I worried a lot about being seen as the professor I was, even though I expected that anyone from my college town who wanted to shop in a CVS would do so in the CVS back there. I made my way to the cosmetics section and took quite some time choosing from among the items I needed, studying the foundation for its color and opacity, the powder for its color, and the rouge for its shininess. I made my way to the aisle that held bandages and disinfectants and chose the store brand antibacterial solution. A few shoppers glanced at me, but no one said anything. Finally, I saw a delicate Timex women's watch at a very good price and decided to buy that. When I brought the items to the checkout counter, the clerk made conversation by saying, "Don't we carry pretty, feminine things?" I really was not sure if she knew I was a male trying to appear feminine or a female trying to look feminine, but I suspected it was the first. Still, I was awfully relieved and impressed that no one had made a big deal of my appearance.

For the next week I stayed at home, read, and started working on a professional paper. That week also gave me a chance to perfect my usage of my new cosmetics. My ears, happily, were healing and were only slightly sore. At midweek, Karen called, asked how I was doing, and invited me to their house for dinner again on the weekend after next. She asked if it would be OK to include Coreen Reddick. The Reddicks had been friends in common of the Parkers and Cy and Marsha, but a year ago Jim Reddick had died. I felt that Coreen needed continued inclusion just as I appreciated how I was being included. Thus I said that it would be OK to include Coreen, since she could also be trusted not to blab about me.

For the dinner with the Parkers and Coreen Reddick, I wore a mint green pullover sweater of Marsha's, my flowered pants, and my white spikes with 4-inch heels over knee-high taupe nylons that I had had in my stash but now took out of my sock drawer. I put on my normal makeup. "Normal!" I thought. "I never thought I would think of putting on makeup as normal."

I shaved closely an hour before I left, and I styled my hair as well as I could. I decided, "It is time to put on some other earrings." Quite excited at the prospect, I looked through Marsha's jewelry box and chose a pair of silver dangles. I had a little trouble sliding their hooks into my piercing holes, but after getting them in, I was entranced at my appearance in the mirror.

Coreen had been informed how to expect me to dress, but she was still not fully prepared for her friend's appearance. One the one hand, I looked surprisingly feminine. On the other hand, to Coreen and the Parkers I was still pretty clearly a man dressing like a woman. Coreen was a beautician, and she said that if I wanted to have a yet more feminine appearance, she could imagine some things that could be done with my hair that would lighten the impression of a male hair arrangement. She pointed out that although my hair was quite short, there were some women with hair that short and it certainly could be styled in a more feminine way. She offered, "Cy, you could come by my salon after hours on next Monday, and I'll give making your hair more feminine a try."

I excitedly agreed and mentioned to my friends, "When I am dressed as a woman, I often call myself Cyndi."

With some apprehension at the prospect of making myself even more overtly feminine looking, I arrived at Coreen's salon wearing a short-sleeved white button blouse over my satin soft bra, with no pads, simple blue pants, and my women's 2-inch heeled loafers. I had my pink, non-shiny lipstick on and powder on my face. I had my studs back in. I had chosen this outfit and makeup as being not very likely to expose me as being in women's clothes at a distance while possibly having someone who saw me as wearing women's clothes think that I was actually a female. I was really concerned about this because this was really the first time I was outside in the daytime in a public area in my own town. However, there was a town parking garage right behind the salon, and it was only a 2-minute walk to the salon through the dimly lit garage and then directly across the street. In fact, I passed only three people during that walk, and none of them paid me the least bit of attention. I was very relieved when I knocked on the door the salon. Coreen had just closed, so there was no one in the salon but her and me.

"We should have two objectives in fixing your hair, Cyndi," Coreen counseled. "First, it should look as feminine as it can now, but we also need to prepare for the time when it will have grown longer. I recommend that the cut in front give you pixie bangs that you can comb to the side if you want to hide your femininity. I do not need to otherwise cut your moderately curly hair, which has some length already. " She also suggested, "It would help if I thinned your eyebrows a bit and removed any hair between the two brows."

I said, "Fine, but do not thin them to the point that they could not be seen as male."

Coreen began to cut my hair into bangs. Having my hair in front combed forward was a new feeling for me, as was the process of cutting out small sections of hair to make the pixie effect. Then she said, "Here, let me show you how to spray your hair and brush it to give it body."

As I followed the progress in the mirror, I marveled, "I never thought my hair could be so pretty!"

"Let's do your brows, now," Coreen said.

As Coreen plucked, I thought, "Another new feeling."

After she had plucked for five minutes and shortened some of my longer brow hairs, Coreen said, "Cyndi, now let me to help you learn to make yourself up better." She showed me how to blend light blue eyegloss with a subtle grey shadow above my eyelashes to produce a pretty look that did not jump out at you. Likewise, she showed me how to slightly darken and extend my brows without it being obvious. She offered me these cosmetics at a discount price, and I happily paid her for them and thanked her much for her help.

I had been following her every makeup step and watching my appearance in the mirror. I was entranced at how feminine I could look with these simple steps. When I left the salon to walk back to my car, I now realized I'd better not strike any passerby as being a man, so I tried to walk as gracefully as I could. Again nothing untoward occurred, much to my relief.

Yet when I got back home, I ruminated on the fact that I had put myself much in harm's way. Yet I thought, "While doing grocery shopping or other chores wearing my earrings and hairstyle, certainly some people will see me as feminine. Thus to not disconcert people, I must wear feminine clothes and show my curvy chest. Yet others will see me as an androgynous man." I worried a lot about this, but I decided two things, "I will need to dress as much as possible in a way to fit in, and I will just need to put up with the untoward glances and comments that I will receive."

Though from then on while I was in public I certainly got some surprised looks, this decision had the result that quite frequently most everyone paid no attention to me because I had begun to look quite feminine. "This is better than I feared," I thought.

At the same time, I still got pretty tense when I had to check out at a store. Since I had been shopping while appearing as a woman, I had been paying always with cash, fearing what would happen when they noticed my male name on my credit card. I figured I could get this tension over in one fell swoop, so I walked into my bank, dressed in pretty pants and a blouse as a woman would, and requested that I be issued a card with my initials and last name. The bank officer was pretty wide-eyed, but seeing that I was not trying to perpetrate fraud, I filled out the forms for the new credit card. The card arrived in the mail three days later, and after that, I paid for my groceries, clothes, cosmetics, and other purchases with that card. I began to realize that the tension I once felt at even being in front of my house dressed in women's clothes was much less, even when I was out shopping fully en femme.

One day my friend John called and said, "I guess that you would like to get back to tennis, Cy. How would you like to play some men's doubles on the coming weekend?" Marsha and I had loved to play tennis, and we had played mixed doubles together with another couple at our club every weekend that the weather permitted. We had also played men's and women's doubles, respectively, on adjacent courts once a week. I had loved how athletic Marsha was.

When John invited me to get back to playing, I jumped at the chance. I guessed I'd have to play in male garb. But as I woke up on the morning of the match, I realized, "Playing on a weekend without Marsha is going to be very tough, psychologically. But," I thought, "if I could wear some feminine clothes on the court, I'd be able to enjoy the tennis. I wonder if I could make the players at the club understand? Well, they're mostly friends, after all."

I realized, "To decide to wear women's tennis clothes on the club courts would be a farther statement than I have been willing to make before. Still, I should be brave since I will get so much enjoyment out of the tennis. I'd better not wear a bra, as my tennis buddies would probably not understand, but I can wear panties because no one will see them." Yet I put in a pair of stud earrings with small gold balls, a style that a few men wore. With that decided, I comfortably continued, "I can wear Marsha's deep pink rayon shorts, because I can explain the importance to me of homage to Marsha. Similarly, I can explain wearing Marsha's pom-pom cutoff sockies with my tennis shoes. And her pink tennis blouse is of a style not different from a man's style, except that the few buttons at the neck are on the women's side. In any case, I am not going to button them." I wore no makeup, but I realized that my clear polished nails would shine as I swung my racquet.

When after my explanations my friends didn't freak out with my clothes, the next time we played, I also had on light lipstick and a soft bra, as well as glasses with women's frames that I had just bought by bucking up my courage and just walking into the opticians at Wal-Mart with my prescription.

The sensations on my chest and back of swinging the racquet with my bra on took some getting used to, but pretty soon I began to take that for granted, as I got back into my major enjoyment of the game. After one of the matches a couple of weeks later, I asked two of my longest time tennis buddies to sit down at a table on the club's deck and drink a beer. I asked them, "How are you the others at the faculty-staff club reacting to me?"

They said "What you are doing is pretty unorthodox, but pretty much everyone who knows feels that if it helps you deal with your grief, so be it. The rest," they said, "will have to lump it, and you will have to ignore their teasing."

Thus encouraged by my friends, I began to play tennis at least twice per week, wearing lipstick, pink nail polish on my fingernails, a bra with my breast pads, a boat neck tennis blouse, women's shorts in pastel or bright colors, pearl stud earrings, and my women's watch that I had decided I needed to keep track of the time we had left on the court. My opponents only kidded me about my dress when I made a weak shot.

One time, a young girl on the next court yelled to me, "Ma'm, would you please throw our ball back?" I figured she just saw me as an older woman.

But one day I received a message from Bill Carter, a friend who was on the club board. It said that one of the members, who seldom played, had seen me playing in women's clothes and felt he could not bring his children to play because they would be exposed to such behavior. I was encouraged by the stand my friends were willing to take on my behalf in the name of tolerance. However, I was very fearful that if I opposed the complaint it would cause publicity, and any publicity of my choice in how to clothe myself would lead to problems when I returned to teach classes. Therefore, with much concern for my ability to deal with my grief, I told Bill that, out of fear of publicity, I would stop playing in women's tennis clothes. Much to my surprise, Bill responded, "At least you can wear a bra and panties and pom-pom socks."

Yet, when after two tries at playing like this I found I could not fully enjoy my tennis, I asked Bill to arrange a meeting with the complaining member. After two days Bill reported back that the member was unwilling to confront me face to face. Bill said, "I told the member that it was the judgment of the club board that if he would not face the matter head on, he should withdraw his complaint. I also told him that we had concluded that it would not be fair to publicize the matter. I guess that he will not make a further complaint and will not publicize the matter out of fear of losing his club membership."

Now I did not know what to do. But after two more times playing with female underclothes but male outerclothes and really missing Marsha, I gave myself permission to return to a feminine appearance when I played. Happily, nothing untoward occurred, and I was much relieved.

Because I wanted some choice in footwear when I went out shopping, I decided that I wanted a second pair of slip-on loafers. This time I felt that I could shop at a shoe warehouse in a city 35 miles away. I arrived at the warehouse wearing black women's pants over taupe knee-high stockings in my present women's 2-inch-heeled loafers and a pink top over my pink molded bra, and carrying a black shoulder bag purse. I was made up in pink lipstick, powder, and subtle grey eyeshadow, I wore gold ball stud earrings, and my hairstyle had pixie bangs. I was amazed at the selection of shoes and excited that, so dressed, made up, and coiffed, I could feel comfortable trying on women's shoes in public, as I'd never before been able to do. There was a small stare or two, but basically I found myself at ease among the shopping people there, mostly women.

After wandering among the aisles and aisles of shoes I found a pair of loafers in black with a 2˝ inch heel and a decorative strap across the vamp. When I tried them on, they fit very comfortably, probably because of their soft lining and padded sole. As I tried these high heeled shoes on, I was impressed with how easily I could walk in them these days.

While I had been wandering among these enormously many pretty shoes, I was very attracted to a pair of white thong sandal slides with a plastic daisy over the vamp and a 3-inch heel. I never before would have even considered such shoes, since when would I be able to wear them? Yet now I was not only able to try them on but also to decide to buy them and wear them as I left the store.

When I took off my boots each morning, having worn them each day longer than the next, I put one of my pairs of medium heeled shoes on instead. Except when I played tennis and slept, I was never out of at least 2˝ inch heels. I was finding that, as I had hoped, I could wear my high-heeled boots for a few hours at a time without much pain. The result was that after the second month of the bereavement period I had stretched my tendons and muscles so, that when one evening I went to my office to get some material and wore my men's shoes my legs felt very uncomfortable, even painful. I was really relieved when, returning home, I could put a pair of my slip-on loafers on, with its higher heel and lighter weight.

My enjoyable, uneventful shopping experience at the shoe warehouse made me consider going back to Burlington Coat Factory to buy myself some new lingerie, but this time dressed and made up in my now standard feminine fashion. With my hair and facial appearance now quite feminine, I felt I could shop without hurry and at a more normal time of day, and sure enough, my confidence led me through two hours of enjoyment of picking through racks of pretty blouses and pants, and bras, panties, and camisoles. I added three molded bras, two camisoles, and 7 pairs of panties to my collection. I chose a number of tops in a variety of styles, and I selected two pair of pants. One was in a mustard color, and the other was in black with flared hems and embroidery of shiny black flowers, styles I would not have considered on my previous visit. Moreover, I decided that I needed to use the women's changing area to try on these pants, and though I got a little bit of a look from the attendant when I asked for the key in my lowish voice for a woman, I was given the key and used that changing area multiple times.

I even looked through a rack of two-piece pant suits. I tried on a very simple suit with blue pants and a light blue sleeveless top, but I found it too simple. The other suit, with green silk trousers having a slight flare at the bottom and a white short-sleeved top with large green buttons was pretty expensive, but it was on sale and fit beautifully, and I just had to have it.

When I stood at the checkout counter with a few hundred dollars worth of pretty feminine clothes, I reminded myself of how furtive I had been the last time. "What a contrast my now confident demeanor is!" I exclaimed to myself.

To look feminine, I had to shave closely twice per day. The very act of shaving my face struck me as extremely nonfeminine, so much so that each time I shaved I grieved for Marsha. Besides, shaving so closely and frequently was pretty painful. And even with this attention I still had stubble on my face that I had to work to cover up with rather heavy makeup. Even though I had worn a beard for so many years and had some thoughts about permanently losing that option, I convinced myself, "You should look on the web and find an electrologist in the area who is listed as tg-friendly." I phoned and explained my situation, and the technician said she'd be happy to begin electrolysis as soon as I liked.

She explained that the treatments were painful, but I reasoned, "This pain is once and for all and will avoid the pain of shaving day after day." There were still two months before I would go back to work, but the electrologist explained that I'd still have beard hairs growing at that time, though more than half of my beard hairs would have been removed. I instructed, "Let's get started," and began once per week appointments. After a month of treatment, which I found painful but endurable, I began to appreciate the smoothening texture of my face and became aware of my lessening grief for Marsha during my morning preparations.

I also started to get tired of the breast pads that kept slipping from under my bra. I considered, "I might buy breast prostheses," but then I felt, "These would not be part of me. Why not try to see if through female hormones I might grow my own breasts? I have no desire to become a woman, but I surely wanted softer, larger breasts to fit into my pretty bras, and having them will make me feel so one with my Marsha."

After some research on the web, I ordered Estrofem pills from an international website. Carefully reading some of the articles online written by doctors for transsexuals, I began with a daily dose of 2 mg. After finding that two weeks of this did not make me feel sick, I escalated the dose to 4 mg per day. After one week of the new dose, I began to feel itchiness in my breasts, and after two weeks I began to see my breasts growing." The very small change did not affect my need for breast pads in my bras, but when I stroked my breasts under my nightgown, I got a new, exciting sensation. And, to say the least, I was not displeased at the small increase in my still pad-enhanced breast size that resulted in even more of the rounding in the feminine tops I now wore all the time, including when I played tennis. To celebrate my new shape, I went to a local craft store and bought myself four pair of the prettiest pierced earrings in a very trendy style.

A month after my first visit to Coreen Reddick's hair salon, I returned for a styling of my now longer greyish brown hair. I no longer felt I had to go after hours, so there were other customers there at the same time, women having their hair done, too. Coreen suggested, "It's time to give your hair more body, Cyndi, and to make the curls less tight and bouncier." She shampooed and conditioned my hair, cut it in layers, and then put it up in big rollers.

I sat under the dryer next to the other customers. The woman next to me began some small talk, noting, "Coreen does lovely work, doesn't she?"

I got up my courage and responded, in as much of a feminine tone as I could figure out to use. I said, "Yes, I love the way she makes my hair look. She has such a sense of the feminine." Again I was amazed at the fact that nothing untoward happened during this salon visit. And I was indeed extremely pleased at how graceful and shiny my grey hair looked. "I guess I have solved my problem of how I am going to keep my hair attractive now that Marsha's haircuts are a thing of the past," I concluded.

It was early August when an invitation in the name of "Cyndi" to a pool party arrived in my mailbox. The party was at what had been Jim and Coreen Reddick's house but where Coreen lived alone now. In the invitation Coreen listed the invitees and wrote, "I'll pre-inform them about your appearance if you accept the invitation and are OK with my sharing that information."

I was impressed with how little I was concerned with the fact that new couples among my friends would know and see how I dressed. I phoned an acceptance of the invitation and concluded immediately, "I'll have to buy a bathing suit that covers my now sprouting breasts." The next morning found me at the local SuperTarget looking for something I could wear to the pool. After considering the extremely wide range of bathing suits available to women, I bought a one-piece skirted suit with a floral skirt and molded cups covered in a white on white pattern. I also bought a see-through off-white cover-up. "What a change from when I was so tense about buying just women's pants," I realized.

After lunch on the afternoon of the pool party, I got myself ready in a way I'd never done before. I shaved my legs including the upper legs, not just below the knee as I had done since soon after the memorial service. I removed the polish on my toes and painted on two coats of a gold polish. I pulled on my bathing suit, pleased that its molded and padded cups gave me a pretty shape and that its feminine colors so nicely decorated my breasts. I noted that the tan lines from sunning in my tank top were now apparent under the narrow straps of my bathing suit, but I said to myself, "The tan lines are in fact consistent with the femininity of my bathing suit." I brushed my hair, put in one of my new pairs of pierced earrings in the form of large gold triangles with a slight curve, applied my makeup, and put on my top. I donned the multicolored sandals that I had owned for years.

I was not the first to arrive at Coreen's. Three couples had already arrived, including the Parkers. While the other two couples had been told of how I was dressing these days, they were pretty surprised at how feminine I looked, and I was so pleased when they told me that. What also pleased me was that, although my hair-free legs still looked too masculine for my taste, the hormones had started to soften their lines. And my polished toenails in full view in my pretty multicolored sandals and the nice curves of my bosom in my pretty suit seen through the feminine cover-up took attention off of my calves.

I struck up a conversation with the Alters, one of the couples who had not seen me femininely dressed before. "What a pretty suit you have, Sue," I remarked.

"Well you look mighty nice, too, Cyndi," Sue Alter noted. I smiled, and thanked Sue for her compliment.

After some discussion with the other guests, I decided that it was time to join some swimmers in the pool, so I took of my top and showed my decorated bosom even more clearly. "What a different set of considerations and feelings this is compared to the last time I swam," I thought. "I have never swum with a garment on my torso. And now I don't want to duck my head so as not to mess up my pretty hair style and my makeup." Between the new feelings and the acceptance I felt, it was a very special experience.

After a month on the hormones I noticed that the lower part of my face had become slightly thinner while my cheek pads had softened and enlarged. My thighs felt nicer with the new fatty layer they were starting to develop, while my calves had softened some. Even the male-shaped pot in my belly had begun to migrate to more feminine areas of my body, namely to my rump, and I found the curves in my pants quite to my liking. Finally, between the hormones and my own cooking's inferiority to Marsha's, I had lost weight from 185 pounds to 178.

After more than three months away from full-time work, it was late August, time for me to return to teach in the fall semester. I considered the issue of professional wardrobe at great length, having a long discussion with myself.

"I guess that I should appear relatively masculine, so as not to disturb my colleagues, the staff, and the students. I need to respect the university as a place where people can focus on learning. However, my already smooth face has begun to conform to a more female shape. Furthermore, my face is surrounded by my hair that I am determined to keep longer than it was when I last taught and that is more full of body than is common in male styles. All this will make it clear something is different, and some of the folks in the department will have heard that I have been dressing differently. Well, I have found that most people don't worry that a man looks a bit feminine, and especially the folks who know me have not been concerned. Besides, university people are especially tolerant, as shown by their good treatment of the now postoperative transsexual on the faculty whom I know. Still, I had better not take a chance."

So when I went back to fulltime work at the university for the first time, I wore panties under my sport jacket and trousers, but otherwise men's clothes. I found that I had to cinch my belt in a few holes due to my thinner waist. I immediately got back into the routine: supervising research, advising PhD students, writing grant applications, preparing lectures, attending committee meetings, and so on. "Deadline after deadline after deadline," I thought.

When I returned home each evening, I felt the loss of Marsha especially strongly, and my legs were in pain from the low heels my legs were no longer accustomed to wearing. To counteract these feelings, I would immediately put on my high-heel boots. Then I would put in my breast pads under one of my molded bras and put on a silky blouse in place of my male shirt and undershirt. These blouses, with their darts, certainly fit my rounded chest better than my male shirts. Putting on these clothes did the job of removing my tension and the pain in my calves, but the tension returned strongly during the next workday.

With each task I worked on at my office, I felt anew the tensions of my job that I was used to, but now I found a difference. "These tensions are especially severe because of the way my clothing and my legs feel," I concluded. "My legs hurt, from the low heels that are so abnormal for me these days. And for more than three months I have felt the comfort of the soft fabrics in women's clothes and have seen how pretty these garments can make me. And even having panties on even emphasizes all the rest of my clothes not being comfortable and pretty. And this not only raises my tension but makes it hard to concentrate on work."

"This is crazy," I judged. "If I am going to be effective as a professor, I have to wear more of the feminine clothes I have come to prefer." So one day I wore a soft, lacy bra under one of my white female oxford blouses, and I found my ability to work enhanced. The bra was well hidden under my undershirt, blouse, and sport jacket, but I was well aware of its tight embrace. So I bought four more oxford blouses, buttoned on the women's side but with no obvious feminine frills.

But the discomfort of wearing low heeled shoes still needed to be solved. I was simply not courageous enough to wear obviously feminine clothing as my women's shoes openly at my work. I remembered the oxfords I had bought. I tried them on, but they seemed so dull to me that I could not imagine wearing them. Looking on line at Rack Room Shoes, I found some women's loafer style career shoes with a 1˝ inch heel that I guessed might not be judged as necessarily feminine but was feminine enough and had a high enough heel to make me comfortable at work.

After five months of facial electrolysis, I found that I needed to shave only once per week and that then I was shaving off hairs that were here and there. Thus my face appeared clear of hair, especially with the light powder that I wore, even to work. Moreover, with the fat migration that had occurred as a result of the female hormones I continued to take daily, my face had quite a soft look, certainly not manly. Also, my weight was now down to 166 pounds, and I had had to buy a new collection of pants and pant suits in size 12 rather than size 16 to fit my neater figure.

As my hair continued to get longer, except for the bangs, which otherwise would grow over my eyes, I began to style my hair into a ponytail. During evenings and on weekends I wore the ponytail high on my head with bangs in a pretty look. During the workday I wore the ponytail low and brushed my long bangs to the side, but I combed them so that they covered my high forehead, lessening how masculine even my daytime look was compared a year before. Even so, when I looked in a mirror, I found my workday hairstyle very grating, and indeed others subconsciously found it inconsistent with my visage.

Ever since Marsha's death I had been in weekly telephone contact with my daughters, Tisha and Jena. However, I had not spoken to them about my choice of how I appeared, but I realized I would need to tell them. When they suggested that they come home for Thanksgiving and that they would prepare the Thanksgiving meal, I, of course, agreed and began to think in earnest how I would present my situation to them. After much thought I carefully composed the following email:

 

"Dear daughters,

You know how much I loved your mother, and my grief for her has been very great. I have found a rather unorthodox way to help me handle this grief. More and more I have been presenting myself in the way she did. In clothes, jewelry, hairdo, and makeup I now appear pretty much to be a woman of my age. My friends have been very understanding, and I know that you will be, too. Thus when you come for Thanksgiving, you will be experiencing me in my new appearance. Please know that I am still the man that has always been your loving father, even though my appearance is androgynous.

Love, Papa"

 

Even though I thought I knew that my daughters would be accepting, I was quite relieved when I received flabbergasted but understanding email from both Tisha and Jena. Both wrote how curious they were to see their father with a feminine appearance. Tisha also said she was happy that her husband was not planning to join her for this visit. "Thank heaven for the tolerance that Marsha and I inculcated in them and just the flexibilities of most of the younger generation!" I thought.

Two days before the visit by Tisha, Jena, and my granddaughter Carla, I made an appointment with Coreen Reddick for a hairdo. My hair had grown past my shoulders, and Coreen Reddick set my hair with big curlers for the Thanksgiving event. The result was that when I met my daughters for the first time dressed as a woman my hair was full of the large curls that I just loved. The feel and look of my hair gave me such a close feeling to Marsha, who had had such beautiful hair for her whole life.

Jena was the first to arrive for Thanksgiving. I picked her up from the airport, and it was lucky Jena recognized the car, for she said she probably would not have recognized her father. The first view of me was through the windshield, and what she saw was a pleasant looking woman who appeared to be in her 50s. When she got in the car and kissed me, she was amazed at the softness of my face, the prettiness of my hair, my figure, my makeup, and the smell of my perfume. She was also struck with the lipstick mark that I left on her cheek.

Tisha had always been the more critical child. When she arrived, with 4-year-old Carla, she said little, but when they got home, Tisha commented, "Papa, if you are going to appear feminine, you should learn to walk in a more graceful way, with smaller steps and placing your feet a bit in front of each other, and swinging your arms less."

I was so pleased at her wanting to help, and I tried to pay attention to how I walked, even when I was holding the hand of my cute 2-year old granddaughter, Carla. When the four of us took a walk in the nearby woods while the Thanksgiving turkey was in the oven, all of us were clad in a pretty blouse over women's jeans. Tisha and Jena wore flat walking shoes, but I had on boots with wide 2˝-inch heels. "Well, they can take their feminine look for granted, having dressed as women for some decades," I thought.

After we returned from the walk, my daughters and I all shared preparing the dinner, and twenty minutes before it was ready, all of us repaired to our bedrooms to dress for dinner. Our family had always dressed for holiday dinners. I decided to wear one of my prettiest pant suits and to wear my hair down, my bangs combed forward with a cute curl. Jena wore a pretty sweater over very feminine pants, and Tisha and Carla both wore very attractive dresses. I was so pleased that my daughters thought it was touching how much I thought about their mother and that they kept commenting how cute their father was.

On the day after Thanksgiving we three were preparing breakfast; all three of us were in our nightgowns and robes. Mine, all in white wispy nylon, hung on my still small breasts almost in the same way their's did, and I was extremely pleased at that. While we were preparing breakfast, Tisha suggested "Let's go to the concert I read about in the newspaper."

Out of fear of not fitting in, I had not been attending concerts since I had been crossdressing, but I missed it very much. So when Tisha, in such an accepting manner, suggested that we go to this concert, I jumped at the chance. Tisha therefore arranged for a babysitter for Carla for Saturday evening.

Tisha asked her dad, "Do you have appropriate clothes for the concert?"

I realized that I really did not. I had had little need for dressy clothes till then. Therefore, we three feminine family members and our little girl went shopping on Friday, even though we knew the shopping crowds would be enormous. In the mall I found myself emotional about being able to share a feminine clothes shopping experience with my daughters. It also seemed that with my feminine appearance and my being with two attractive young ladies and my cute granddaughter, who attracted attention away from me, none of the other shoppers was even thinking that I might be other than the grandma that I was dressed as.

We shopped in many mall department stores, with Tisha and Jena picking outfits from the rack that they thought would look pretty on their father. I decided that the dresses they were suggesting were too revealing of my legs, and I told them to restrict the choices to outfits with pants. "Concert garb with pants?" my daughters thought. "Well, at least we can get something quite feminine that will enhance Papa's appearance." With my weight at 164 pounds the girls and I thought there was a good chance of some shapely garment fitting my body.

Jena picked out a formal violet sweater with silver threads forming highlights, and she found a pair of deep pink pants with flared bottoms as a match. Tisha pulled off the rack a beautiful jumpsuit with a fitted gold top, a high waist, and flowing black crepe pants. I took these outfits into the changing room with Tisha while Jena took care of Carla. I tried them both on with Tisha helping to arrange them on me, and I came out of the changing room into the main store to show Jena how I looked. Jena's squeal of delight when seeing her dad in the jumpsuit voiced what was completely clear to all of us, that this extremely attractive jumpsuit was the very item we had been looking for. I was so delighted that my daughters had found me this gorgeous, very feminine outfit and so amazed at how comfortable I felt shopping in public for women's clothes with my family.

As I, as Cyndi, prepared for the concert, I was very aware that this was the first time I would be out in a crowd in public. I donned my lovely new jumpsuit with dark knee-highs and my patent leather pumps with stylish two-inch heels, which I had not worn out of the house since I had begun dressing as a woman. I put on evening makeup, just as my two pretty daughters did, and we waited until the babysitter arrived. She was a 14-year old, and Tisha, Jena, and I were pleased as punch at the apparent fact that she saw us as two pretty young women and their nice looking mother. As these three prettily garbed women entered the concert hall, people there also seemed to take us as a mother and her two daughters. At the intermission we ran into the Parkers, who were so pleased to see Tisha and Jena and exclaimed at how pretty my outfit was. They were careful to call me by my feminine name while out in public so that no one hearing their conversation would be surprised.

I enjoyed the concert more than any I could remember. Not only was the music wonderful, but I was with my loving family, and I just adored the way my clothes felt on me. When at intermission the three of us needed to use the toilet, I found myself in the ladies room with my daughters for the first time. "I love this togetherness that I've never been able to experience before," I marveled. "And I love how I look in the mirror," I thought as I freshened my makeup.

When Tisha, Carla, and Jena left to fly home, my daughters hugged their feminine looking father and wished me the best in my unconventional dress, telling me, "Papa, you look nice that way." I thought, "How encouraging these words from my daughters are. If they are OK with me appearing feminine, I need really not be concerned with those in the rest of the world who have problems with my doing that."

Still I was unwilling to jar my colleagues by appearing in obvious female dress, and yet I found that I could not deal with renewed tension, no matter how feminine I was dressing at home. As a result, I decided to apply, at the last minute, for a sabbatical semester for the winter/spring term and summer in a place where I could dress as I preferred. I had a close colleague, Jan Buijs, at the Free University of Amsterdam, and I emailed him with the request that I spend the spring and summer in his department doing research and teaching a course. Not only was this a place that might value my collaboration, but it was also a place that, if I appeared in women's clothes right upon arrival, I might be accepted. When I received a very positive reply to my suggestion, I upped the ante by noting that I would be using this period away from home for a personal experiment. The answer was that if the experiment was in character with my previous life, they would happily have me.

Once I received the letter of invitation from my friend Jan, I needed to get cracking on obtaining a Dutch visa. On the next Saturday, I went to Coreen's salon and had her set my hair in a pretty, flippy feminine do. When I got home I put on a pretty white blouse and light makeup and earrings, set up my digital camera on its tripod, and using its automatic timer, posed for many passport-style pictures.

I chose a picture that I thought flattered me, with the plan to submit that with my visa application. I knew that the visa office would compare my new picture to the male one in my passport, but their instructions were that the picture in the visa show the applicant in his or her present appearance. "His or her, indeed!" I thought. I had chosen my makeup in the picture not to be heavy so that the Dutch visa office would see that I was the same person shown in my US passport picture.

I loved wearing my new hairdo during the weekend, and it was disappointing when on Monday I had to wash it out so that my hair at work could be seen as a long male style.

A week later, I was extremely excited when an express mail envelope was delivered to me with my Dutch visa, with my feminine picture mounted in it. I began the process of packing up my things for the trip. I put all of my male clothes in our guestroom closet, and I began to pack my female clothes in two large suitcases. I planned to spend my whole time in female dress, so I packed nothing male, except me.

So it was that just before Christmas I was in my local airport flying off to 8 months in Amsterdam. I was wearing only women's clothes, but they could be taken as male: a simple white breast-minimizing bra under a white oxford blouse and men's-cut women's pants. I had black nylon knee-high stockings on, but over them I had black socks and my women's oxford shoes. I had no makeup on, and my hair was pulled back into a ponytail tied low, as males do. All this allowed me to pass through security with my passport picture.

I had splurged to buy a first class ticket and was seated in a row with only me in it. I was toting a small carry-on bag in which I had placed various pieces of female clothes. On the plane, as soon as the fasten seat belt sign went off, I went into the little washroom/toilet with my little bag. I took off my blouse and bra and put on a pretty cream lacy B-cup bra in which I placed my breast pads to augment my own breast size, which had now grown to a smallish A-cup. Over the bra I put on a peach colored fuzzy sweater, which showed off the curves of my chest. I took off my socks and replaced my shoes by pretty black pumps with a narrow, tapered 2-inch heel and a fabric bow at the vamp. I pulled down my hair from the male ponytail it was in and combed out its curls so that they framed my face. I put in my stud earrings. Finally, I took out the small purse that I had placed in the totebag, and I applied iridescent pink lipstick that was in the purse. Returning to my seat, I felt and figured I looked like a whole new, feminine person. When at my seat I began to apply matching iridescent pink nailpolish to my fingernails, when the flight attendant, a pretty young woman, came by with to offer a drink. She did a slight double-take, but seemed to be pleased at the appearance I had obtained. She probably guessed that she had misread me before rather than now.

I asked the flight attendant to bring back the drink after my nails were done. Once they were dry, I felt my transformation was complete. I now appeared to be the woman that I would dress as for my whole sabbatical. I cannot tell you how excited yet relaxed I felt during the whole flight. I napped a bit, dreaming of the feminine life ahead of me in Holland.

When I arrived at Schiphol Airport, I pointed out to the inspector at passport control, with much trepidation, that my passport and visa pictures were different because I had recently chosen to change my appearance. I was so relieved when he took no major pause, though he did crack a small smile.

At baggage claim I picked up the two very large suitcases that I had packed. I would need much more for the next six months, I realized.

I was met at Amsterdam Centraalstation by my colleague Jan. Of course, when he saw me he was amazed at my feminine appearance, but the Dutch are surprisingly accepting about such things, and when I told him I'd explain, he seemed to take my femininity in stride. As we rode from downtown Amsterdam to the flat he had organized for me, I explained the history of my grief over my loss of Marsha and how this had led to my present appearance. I told him, "I plan to be Cyndi for my whole sabbatical."

"OK," he said, "I'll just introduce you as Cyndi to my colleagues who do not know you. For the rest, you are on your own to explain."

Jan helped me get my luggage into my flat and excused himself, saying, in his Dutch accent but with very colloquial English, "You must be bushed, Cy, er—Cyndi. We'll see you tomorrow night for dinner." He left to drive home, no doubt in a hurry to tell his wife about me.

Very tired from the jetlag and lack of sleep, I decided to take a nap of a few hours, but first I took my estrogen pills, a large supply of which I had brought with me. To celebrate my ability to be dressed as a woman fulltime, I found my laciest nightgown in my suitcase, put it on, noted with pleasure how it was beginning to hang nicely on my breasts, and got in my bed. When I woke up, it was early afternoon. I was startled at how strong my emotions were at the thought of completely living as a female. I reasoned that I had better rein in my emotions and attend to practical matters, first getting some food into my larder. But my emotions soared as I considered I would be doing these day to day things as a woman. Putting on my bra and panties, I realized that each time I needed to go out, I would need some real preparation time to choose my clothes and do my makeup. Seeing out the window the normal raw, coldish Dutch winter weather, I pulled on opaque black tights, and I chose a turtleneck pink blouse and a light blue cardigan as well as woolen trousers. These trousers were bright red, a color I'd not been able to wear out of the house before. After some minutes of applying foundation, blusher, eyebrow pencil, and lipstick and brushing my feminine hairdo into place, I slipped on a pair of reddish brown shoes with 3-inch wedge heels and viewed myself in the full length mirror that I found behind the closet door. "Maybe I am fooling myself," I thought, "but I might just be able to pass as a woman."

Walking down to the ground floor, I knocked on the door of my landlady and asked where the nearest food market was. Though she was surprised at my ability to speak Dutch, she showed no surprise at my appearance, which pleased me no end. Following her directions, I walked to the Albert Heijn supermarket that she'd directed me to, stepping carefully in my high heels. As I shopped for food, I smiled inwardly at my doing this typically feminine chore while looking as the female that my wonderful wife had been. Perhaps a few of the Dutch women shopping took a second look at me, but largely I felt that I fit in. Walking back from Albert Heijn, I was passed by many bicycles and set myself the objective of acquiring a bike; obviously I would need a woman's bike.

The next day was a Saturday, and I decided to shop for some more clothes for me. I found a C&A department store in the vicinity and walked in, dressed in my low-heeled black pumps, a nice blouse, and my red pants and made up as simply as I knew how. Walking by a rack of pretty blouses with a somewhat low cut neckline, I found one with light blue piping at the neckline and on the bustline that I thought would go really well with my royal blue pants. I browsed the racks of pant suits, looking around me from time to time to see if any others were staring, and I saw no such thing. I chose two suits I particularly liked, one green with an orange and yellow flower pattern decorating the jacket cuffs and the waist, and the other a dressy suit in a lovely shiny light pink woven fabric with embroidered braids. I carried these to the changing rooms, quite at comfort and remembering how a year ago I had felt so ill at ease at the chance someone might notice a man picking out women's pants.

After buying the blouse and these two pretty suits, I found my way to a bicycle shop. There I found the prettiest red women's bike in the Dutch style, with a diagonal bar and a chain cover that would allow me to ride in skirts. After buying a lock and chain, very needed because of the serious bike theft problem in The Netherlands, I rode it to my new home.

After making myself a cup of the wonderful Dutch coffee, I put my hair into curlers and set about planning my outfit for dinner at the Buijs's. I wanted to wear my new pink pant suit, but I decided that was probably too dressy for an informal evening with friends. Thus I took the tags off of my new blouse and put it on. Then I got out my royal blue feminine pants with swishy bell bottoms and ironed until they were wrinkle-free and took a sharp crease to the lower leg, where the widening began. "With male clothes I would not have been as careful," I thought.

When Jan picked me up, I was comfortably clad in this attractive, feminine, casual outfit, and I was wearing navy ballet flats that obviously no one could think of as at male. My hair was well curled and brushed to make my face as attractive as its obvious limitations allowed, and my makeup enhanced that attractiveness. I wore a dainty gold bracelet and matching neck chain, and for the first time I wore dangle earrings that I had purchased for myself, in a shop opposite the canal.

Marijke Buijs had known me a bit from some previous visits, but she granted that she certainly would not have recognized me. I smiled as she complimented my appearance. I found the conversation before and during dinner, mostly about our families, absolutely charming. Then Marijke suggested, "Cyndi, if you would like to freshen your makeup, the powder room is off of the hall."

"This time in Holland is going be full of new experiences," I said to myself.

The rest of the evening was simply time shared among friends. I appreciated so being able to be natural while feeling feminine.

When I appeared at the Free University on the Monday, I was wearing my most professional women's pant suit, albeit one with deep purple pants, black pumps with medium heels and conservative makeup. I had dressed and put on my makeup with great care (and excitement), as I wanted to make a very good impression and still was not fully skilled at makeup.

My trip had involved a tram ride. As I waited at the tram stop, in my handbag I found the strippenkaart, the multi-ride ticket that the Dutch use, that I had brought with me from my last trip to Holland. I mused at how different my appearance was now from the last time I had used that ticket. I was pleased that the driver did not see anything amiss about me as he stamped my ticket.

I found my way to the office building where I would be working. The feminine click of my heels made me smile as I walked along the sidewalk. When I got onto the right street, I was confused as to which building was Jan's, and I stopped a woman walking by. In my passable Dutch and my passable appearance, trying also to have a voice that was also passable, I asked for help, and I was pleased at how pleasantly and without any look of concern the woman pointed me in the right direction.

I walked into the elevator in the building where Jan's office was and mine would be. Two other women got in after me and smiled in a friendly manner. They were dressed in simple pants – in my business pant suit I was much more dressed up than they were.

When I found my way to Jan's office, he greeted me warmly again, and said, "Cyndi, let's get you introduced around." We walked from office to office, and to each of his colleagues Jan introduced me, saying, "This is Cyndi, a valued colleague." To the ones that I had met before, we sat down for a few minutes and I explained myself. No one seemed to have a big problem, much to my relief. I began to set up my office. I had the idea that it would be consistent with how I was presenting myself if I got a vase for my office and kept it filled with the flowers that are available inexpensively in every outdoor market in the Netherlands.

On the Friday night at the end of the first week of work I found my way to the Lellebel Club to meet transsexuals who could advise me on places to get my hair done, to continue electrology treatments, to buy clothes, etc. I planned to buy much more feminine finery while in Holland. I met a number of people. Some were flaming drag queens, but many were serious crossdressers or transsexuals.

On the basis of the recommendation of one of the transsexuals, I made an appointment for after work on the next Tuesday at a women's hair salon. I had been thinking about my graying hair for a long time, and it had occurred to me that since maybe the majority of women my age had their hair colored so that they would look younger, there was no reason, now that I was dressing as a woman, that I should not also make my hair pretty in this way. "Moreover," I thought, "I can make a further memorial to Marsha by having my hair dyed close to the color Marsha's had been when we were married, a rich medium brown with reddish highlights." Thus, when I went to the salon I asked the operator to show me hair color samples. After a lot of study I picked out what struck me as Marsha's color and instructed the operator to make my hair that color. I also tried to describe the reddish highlights I wanted. She assured me that she could produce the desired effect.

She put a pink cape over my blouse, and the process started. After hours of washing, rinsing, soaking, and rinsing, followed by more time with foil on my hair and painting, and conditioning, and rinsing, my chair was finally swung around so that I could see the result in the mirror. I had hair awfully close to what Marsha's had been. It really made me feel not only pretty but so close to my late, beloved wife.

I needed to have my newly colored hair set. A collection of large curlers were inserted, on the top, on the sides, and on my bangs. And more solutions were applied. And I sat under a dryer. Then the curlers were taken out, and my lovely brown hair was brushed out into its style. I freshened my makeup, and "Wow!!!" There after over two hours in the salon I was, lovelier than I had ever seen myself in my life!

What was even greater was that when I woke up on the next morning and looked at myself in the mirror, the loveliness was still there, at least after I put on my makeup. And when I appeared at work the next day, made up for work and in a pretty light green pant suit I had brought with me from Pennsylvania, my female colleagues complimented me on how much prettier I was with my new hair color and new hairdo. "This time in Holland is surely making a new me," I thought.

Now that I had hair that looked like Marsha's, I felt a special responsibility to keep it looking very nice. I came to realize that that meant tens of minutes of setting and brushing every morning. Also, I had to buy pretty scarves so that my hairdo would not be blown to bits during my bike ride to work. A month after my first appointment, I was back in the hair salon for some ideas on how I could make my hairdo require less maintenance.

The operator suggested a permanent to fix big curls in my hair, curls that would only require brushing out after I shampooed my hair each morning. Whereas when I had appeared as a man I only shampooed about every two days, I had now had made shampooing every day my practice to keep my hair shiny. I agreed to the permanent and underwent the chemical smells and time under the hot dryer with lots of big rollers in my hair. After the comb-out, I had "big hair", and I loved it. And each day thereafter I loved looking at myself in the mirror with my pretty hair as I left for work or for my weekend shopping trips.

Each weekend I would have an appointment with an electrologist, who removed what little facial hair I still had. I also decided to have her begin removing the hair on my chest so that I could wear low cut tops without having to shave my chest hair each time. I was continuing the use of daily hormone pills, and my breasts and fatty layer continued to grow gradually, making my shape more and more to my liking. I began to become much better at applying subtle but beautifying makeup.

As for my wardrobe, I found lots of shops I loved to look at clothes in. Trying clothes on in these shops became second nature, and I found that I did not have to buy something every time I tried clothes on. Mostly I bought lots of new pairs of very feminine pants, blouses with frills, and the prettiest of shoes. My shoe collection became very large – many dozen pairs. That surely was inconsistent with the collection of a half dozen shoes total at any time that I had had earlier in my life.

I was spending at least one weekend day every week shopping for new clothes. I really enjoyed finding pretty things for myself. I also was struck with the difference for me now as compared to when I was dressing as a man. Then I might wear the same clothes to work for days or weeks, except for clean underwear and socks every day and cycling through a few shirts. Now once I wore a combination of a top and pants or a suit, I was not willing to wear the same combination during the whole time I was working in Amsterdam. Lots of new pretty clothes, and mix and match were the order of the day.

My office announced a special reception, to take place on the Queen's birthday, to celebrate a major new center that they had formed. A minister from the government would attend the gala event, a dressy affair. I was excited to shop for what I would wear to this event. In shopping I tried on some lovely cocktail length dresses and some long gowns with full skirts. Some of the gowns were strapless; I found that my figure could support tops and dresses like that. But my style was still pants, and when I spied a pant suit with a gold lame on gold design, I knew right away that I had found the perfect outfit.

Trying on this gorgeous suit was so exciting, and even though it was rather expensive, I knew I had to have it. The jacket was low cut, and I needed a blouse to wear under it, but I didn't find what I wanted in the same shop. Indeed, after trying three more shops, I still had not found what I wanted, and I was so tired that I put off further shopping to another day.

On the following Wednesday I walking from work to a restaurant where I was meeting a friend, when I spied what looked like the perfect blouse in a shop window I was passing. I rushed in and asked to look at this gorgeous white lace top that had spaghetti straps. It was perfect, but they did not have my size. They said, however, that they were happy to order my size and that they could have it in a week's time.

In the meanwhile I needed to find some dressy shoes to go with this beautiful, feminine outfit I had put together. After trying on more than a dozen pairs of shoes in three different shops, I came upon the perfect pair: gold, strappy sandals with 4-inch heels. It was all I could do not to wear these special shoes out of the shop.

A week later I returned to try on and buy the lace blouse I had ordered. It fit very well, and now I had my whole outfit, except that I needed to buy a strapless bra that would show under my blouse. I wanted a wonderbra that had matching panties; it was exciting to be looking for such feminine underclothes that I was buying with the intention that the bra would show. The set I found was white with beautiful satin flowers sewn on.

A few weeks later it was the day of the reception, a Saturday. The reception started at 6pm (18:00, the invitation said). I had an appointment with my hairdresser in the morning to touch up the coloring of my roots. Right after lunch I began to prepare the rest of me. First I took off the polish on my fingernails and toenails. After a shower during which I thoroughly shampooed my long hair and shaved my legs, armpits, and arms (from my electrology my chest seemed adequately hairless), I caressingly rubbed oil up my legs till they had a soft sheen – even though I hardly ever showed my legs in public, I liked to keep them pretty. I marveled at how much softer my legs were than when my muscles were directly felt through my skin.

Then I pulled on the very pretty wonderbra and panties set, embroidered with flowers. The wonderbra emphasized my slight cleavage attractively, and I found the strapless style very sexy. I then put on a short pink robe I had bought and began to apply a pinkish nail polish with a gold tint to both my fingernails and toenails. Two coats for each, followed by a clear cover coat required almost an hour, so by then it was 3 o'clock. I now put my attention to my makeup.

First came foundation, which covered what few blemishes I had on what I, at least, saw as my now quite feminine looking face. Then I set to putting on eyeliner, which I was not at all adept at doing. It took three tries to get it right, but with the two tones of blue eye shadow and dark blue mascara I applied, my eyes looked mighty pretty. They looked even nicer after I drew on eyebrow pencil on my thinned brows and extended them, as I did not do with my daytime makeup. I applied blush to my cheeks and got out my compact and powdered my face, smoothing everything out. I drew around my lips with shiny dark red lipliner, and then put on shiny ruby red lipstick. I then brushed my large curls into place and looked at myself in the mirror. I saw a dramatic female visage, and I smiled broadly.

I pulled on knee high beige sandalfoot stockings, the silkiest I had, and I admired how my toenails glistened through the stockings, an impression that would be enhanced when they peered through the golden straps of my sandals. Then I took off the short robe and pulled the lacy blouse over my feminine upper body. One look in the mirror impressed me how very beautifully feminine my upper torso looked.

Then I pulled up my gold pants and zipped the side zipper, pinching in my waist and letting the lace blouse drape over the waistband. The pantlegs felt very long until I strapped on my gold sandals, and then the pants enticingly whispered on my nylon covered heels. Standing on these four-inch heels for the whole cocktail time would be a challenge, I realized, but I was willing to endure that for the sake of looking so pretty. I also was aware that the four inches added to my five foot ten inch height would make me quite tall for a woman by American standards, but here in The Netherlands the women and men were very tall, and as a female I did not stand out with my height.

I splashed on some Chanel Number 5 perfume and then set to decorating my left wrist with my pink-faced watch with a band of gold and pink hearts that I wore every day. In my jewelry box I sought a gold bracelet, which I placed on my right wrist, and a gold chain necklace, which once on my neck hung down so as to bring attention to my cleavage. I took off the studs I wore so continuously that I frequently forgot they were there and inserted dangly golden chains each made from four 1 cm links.

I put my gold-on-gold jacket on and buttoned the single button at the fitted waist, emphasizing even more the contrast between my projecting breasts and my narrowed waist. This was the most dressed up I had ever been, and I felt marvelous. I realized that I had begun to dress like Marsha as a means to relax myself, and now, though very happy and comfortable, I could be more described as enervated than relaxed.

Not wanting to ride my bike in my dressy clothes, I called a taxi. I walked into the reception, and immediately Marijke Buijs rushed over, kissed me on the lips, with our lipsticks merging, and told me how beautiful I looked. As the reception began to fill, the Minister of Education approached and said, "Goeden avond, mevrouw. Gefelicteerd over uw instituut." I was truly pleased at his greeting me as "mevrouw", i.e., "ma'am" and that he thought I was to be congratulated over the formation of the new institute.

A week later I was riding home from work, and switching lanes to turn left, a car swerved in front of me, and I had to brake suddenly. I fell from my bike, and immediately felt great pain in my forearm. As I picked myself up, a car stopped and offered to take me to the hospital. Hurting a lot, I accepted and found myself in a wheelchair in the admitting room of the emergency ward. Almost immediately, a doctor approached me and said (of course, in Dutch), "Madam, let me help you."

I realized I had reached an apotheosis of my crossdressing when I answered, entirely comfortably, "I am a male crossdresser on HRT, and I believe I have broken my arm." Even in pain, no longer was I tense about appearing as I wished to appear.

My arm was set, and they put on a cast on my right arm. Putting on lipstick was now going to be harder, I realized.

As soon as I got to my apartment, I emailed my daughters, as I had promised them that whenever I had a health problem I would inform them. Jena immediately emailed back offering to come to help me through my recovery. I wrote back explaining that I was living as a woman, and if she was OK with that, I'd love to have her come. Two days later Jena arrived. I knew that she had been comfortable with my feminine dress at Thanksgiving time, and I was relaxed that she would nicely take in stride the greater degree of femininity, with my hairdo, larger breasts, regular use of perfume, and so on. Sure enough, when I met her at Schiphol Airport, she hugged me and said, "How lovely you look, Papa."

The time with Jena was particularly sweet. We did things together as a mother and daughter would, and she helped me get dressed and made up as needed. I was really sorry to see her go.

As the time in Amsterdam went on, and as I continued to take my estrogen pills, my body continued to change. My bust grew to a B cup, my face softened, my bottom rounded, and my hips got a nice fatty layer. All of this made my clothes look better on me, and I found particular satisfaction in looking so nice.

When I returned home in late August I looked much softer and curvier than I had when I left. With all of the bicycling and walking one did in The Netherlands, my weight had dropped to 157, so my waist was quite trim. My body shape, with its B-cup breasts, my hair with its permanent still in effect, my pierced ears, and my shaped fingernails were obvious to anyone who looked. So I was going to have to present the changed me to my colleagues. At the same time, I wanted to minimize the shock.

First, I emailed the department chairman and asked him to organize a short meeting of the colleagues and staff members in the department with whom I worked most closely and to call that meeting for some time in the morning of the first day of my return. My plan was to share my changes with them first.

I had not worn men's clothes for two thirds of a year, and I was not about to return to wearing those ugly garments. Still on that first day back to work, to keep the shock to others to a minimum I dressed with only mild femininity. I put my hair in a ponytail and wore only lightly applied, natural color lipstick as makeup. I had clear polish on my fingernails. I wore a simple white blouse, albeit with a Peter Pan collar. Besides the collar it did not look that different from the male shirts that I had once worn every day, except that it buttoned on the other side and it had darts to fit well over breasts. I wore trousers of a cut that was not overly feminine and in a muted, navy blue color. I wore opaque black tights with little sheen and career women's loafer style shoes with only a 1˝ inch heel. In my ears were my green stoned studs, and I wore my women's watch and a chain at my neck that was heavy enough that it could be worn by a man. I chose a purse that did not stand out, a simple brown leather bag. Of course, underneath my outer clothes things were not muted: I wore slinky panties and a pretty bra to support my B-cup breasts.

As I arrived at work, I felt reasonably relaxed, but my assistant, Judy, asked me, "What's the story, Cy?"

"Cyndi," I responded with a somewhat reddened face. "I decided to add pizzazz in my style. I'll explain more at the meeting later." Judy remained mute but nodded with acceptance though in her mind she realized that there was more to it than that.

At the meeting, I explained to my colleagues, "I found myself very tense after Marsha died, and I found that looking pretty, as she had, relaxed me. One thing led to another, and I began to take hormones, which made my shape prettier and also made me even more confident and relaxed. During my time in Amsterdam I saw what it was like to live every minute of every day clothed as a woman. It gave me confidence and comfort, so I have decided to dress this way for the rest of my life. I hope that you do not find it too weird and can accept your long time friend and colleague dressing the way he feels most comfortable. Underneath I am the same person. Still, if you can remember, I'd like you to call me Cyndi."

Most of them expressed acceptance, and most of them came over to me personally and were friendly and supportive. A couple of them walked out with a somewhat sullen look on their face, and a couple of others faced me and said they were not comfortable with my doing this but would try to become accepting.

Thus on the next day I appeared at work dressed just as I had in Amsterdam. I dressed as a professional woman would, with my hair nicely dressed, with tasteful makeup and jewelry and blouse and a pant suit on my body, and nylons and heels on my feet. However, for a few weeks I tried to dress as unobtrusively as I could. I made sure that my shoes were in muted colors, albeit not just the male brown or black but more frequently blue or dark red. I did wear 3-inch heels that were somewhat narrower than the loafers' and yet were equally as comfortable as the 2-inch heeled shoes I'd worn before I left for Amsterdam. They were styled more like a dress pump rather than having a top closed by a tongue, and one of the pairs I wore frequently had a pretty narrow leather bow decorating the vamp. In any case, I enjoyed their attractive appearance. .

My transsexual colleague said I looked wonderful. Many of my other colleagues and the staff seemed bemused, and all seemed tolerant. Their interactions with me appeared little different from what they had been when I had dressed as a male. I was amazed at how little commotion I had caused and how relaxed I was now feeling about appearing in my feminine form at the university.

Of course, I wanted my hair to keep its pretty color and sheen. A few days after I returned, I had walked in unannounced to Coreen's hair salon. I wondered whether Coreen would recognize me immediately, what with my shapelier body and hair, but with great excitement she did greet me. After her embrace, she said, "How beautiful your hair is, Cyndi. I will love taking care of it for you." And from then on she took care of cutting, coloring, and styling my hair, with an appointment every six weeks.

On the day after I arrived home, Joe and Karen Parker had called me and said they were so pleased I was home, and asked, "Could we come over?" I told them that my house was a mess but if they did not mind, they were welcome. Upon their arrival, they exclaimed how nice I looked and how much my hair looked like Marsha's. Our friendship was as close as ever, and they began to include me again in many of their activities.

Also, John called and suggested tennis. With my much larger breasts than when I played last I had to buy a sports bra and a shapelier tennis blouse. Now there were no people complaining about a man in feminine tennis clothes; they saw a woman.

After two months I found myself not worrying about how others felt about my way of dressing. I even would have pink nail polish on sometimes during workdays. While I heard that there were some titters about my appearance in closed offices by some students and staff, everyone treated me externally with the respect due to a senior professor. My work went well, and though the tensions of deadlines remained, they were mollified by the way I felt otherwise. By the end of the first semester I no longer heard such titters from either the students or the staff.

As for me myself, I self-analyzed, "I feel very good about myself. I am certainly much more attractive than I ever was, and my demeanor reflects my positive self-image."

During the time since Marsha died, I had been spending even more time on transgender Internet sites than I had while married. One site that particularly attracted my attention was the TS Girlfriend website, as it seemed to bring transgendered people together in long-term relationships. After Marsha had been gone for more than a year and a half, I realized that, while I loved the way I was dressing and certainly would not give it up, I missed cuddling with the soft body of a person I loved in the bed next to me. I found myself thinking, "I want another female companion." My grief over Marsha had been assuaged enough for me consider having one.

Yet I asked myself, "What kind of woman would want to relate with me, given my appearance?" I realized that the answer lay on the TS Girlfriend website. "A transsexual woman could love me! And one of my age would not have unreasonable sexual expectations."

So in March I composed an advertisement for a companion for the TS Girlfriend website. It read "Full-time androgyne widower, age 65, wishes long term, loving relationship with post-op of similar age." I also loaded a recent picture of myself that Karen Parker had taken.

I received 47 answers to my ad. Quite a few were raunchy, but among the serious ones, one from a transsexual named Belinda Grey stood out. Belinda wrote, "I am 55 years old, was a high school history teacher for thirty years, and have two adult sons. As a man I had a long, loving relationship with my wife, but when I transitioned, my wife felt she had to divorce me, while keeping a friendly relationship." Belinda attached a picture of herself, and I saw a very attractive, mature woman.

I emailed Belinda the following note:

 

"Dear Belinda, I am flattered by your interest in our meeting. The picture you sent is just lovely, and from your letter you impress me as a person I would want to get to know whatever her gender. Let me tell you a bit more about myself.

I am a mathematical sciences professor who had a long, loving relationship with my wife, who died last year. I am on Estrofem and have size B breasts, and I have come to dress as a woman full-time, even at the university. But I am still and will remain fully male. My two daughters, my colleagues, and my friends accept the way I appear.

I am very impressed with your loving relationship with your family. I am also very taken with your pretty appearance, and I attach another picture of me.

Let's communicate further by Yahoo Messenger.

Yours with admiration, Cyndi"

 

Belinda and I developed a friendship by Yahoo Messenger and email over two months. We told each other about our happy marriages and about how we each had dealt with our transgendered feelings. I finally emailed with the question, "Belinda, could I send you a plane ticket to come visit me?" We agreed that Belinda should come to visit at the beginning of June.

On the day Belinda arrived, I was dressed in a pretty sleeveless sweater, my pretty, embroidered black flare-legged pants, and my black 2˝-inch heeled loafers. Belinda was dressed in normal traveling clothes of a green pullover blouse, grey pants, and green mid-heeled pumps. Struck with how Belinda was even prettier in person than in her picture, I smiled and said, "Hello, beautiful."

Belinda replied, "It's so nice for you to say that. I really like your outfit."

"How sweet she is," I thought. Even so, we two were a little stiff with each other at first, but quickly we found a lot in common.

Belinda said she loved my house and commented, "It's so nice that you have so many framed pictures of your family. What are their names?"

When I told her, Belinda exclaimed, "How pretty Tisha and Jena look in their pictures. How cute Carla is!"

I then asked about Belinda's sons and how they had accepted her transition. Belinda explained, "Well, they had some problems with that at first, but when they read some website materials I gave them and understood that I was born that way, they came to accept my changing to a female dad." With this intimate conversation Belinda and I were becoming real friends.

During Belinda's visit we shopped for clothes together. Belinda was forever pulling all kinds of finery off the rack and crying out, "How cute that would look on you, Cyndi." I loved Belinda's taste, feminine confections with pretty decorations but practical. I also loved Belinda's excitement when either of us looked nice in a particular outfit. "How beautiful these clothes make us!" Belinda would exclaim.

We found it really special when our common taste led us to buy the same outfit for each of us. We were greatly taken with a particular skort set Belinda picked. It had a pretty frill at the bottom of the skort and at the bottom of the blouse, which was worn outside the skort. We each bought one in our own size, and each wore that set out of the store. "Not something two natal women would do, wearing the same outfit on purpose," we laughed.

We two found that we enjoyed the same kind of music and went to two concerts and a play during Belinda's two-week visit. We both enjoyed tennis, and we played six times during the two weeks at my club. After the first time, Belinda convinced me, "You just have to buy that cute pale yellow and pink tennis dress we saw while shopping." I did buy it, and the following times we played, I wore that dress. It was basically yellow, and on it was embroidered a large gingham lace-outlined heart with its rounded tops decorating my breasts and the point at the bottom enticingly providing a delicate pointer at my waist. Matching gingham pink panties edged by the same lace flashed as I ran around the court. Belinda played in a simple blouse and a skirt, having become more used to being in feminine clothes during her transition and since. But there was flash to her ensemble provided by her dark polished fingernails which shone while she was swinging her racquet.

Each time after tennis we took a dip in the club pool. Belinda changed in the women's dressing room, and I clung to changing in the men's, albeit into a bathing suit that that dressing room never before had seen. I feared that some female members who had known me when I was dressing as a male would be put out if I used the women's dressing room. On the other hand, some visitors to our club who did not know me were pretty surprised by such a feminine person being in the men's changing room. But happily, no one complained.

By the time Belinda left for home, she and I had already scheduled to spend a vacation week together in the Green Mountains of Vermont during July. On the day we chose, Belinda flew into the Albany, New York Airport, and I was there in my car to pick her up, having driven from home in Pennsylvania. We drove the pretty back roads of New York Route 7 and then Vermont Route 7A to Manchester, Vermont. Belinda and I spent the vacation based at the Equinox Hotel there. During that romantic week we loved hiking together and shopping in the many nearby outlet shops. I enjoyed shopping for pretty clothes as I never had done when shopping for the drab clothing with limited styles that were available for men.

The romantic old hotel and its beautiful environs were enhanced when Belinda and I began a sexual relationship. Belinda had a vibrator with her, which she began to use not only on herself but on my breasts and genitals, as well. Then, I used it to stimulate Belinda. "My God, how I love this person," we both thought to ourselves.

And then I struck up my courage and said, "Belinda, I love you!" When Belinda responded, "I love you, too," we kissed deeply and then decided that Belinda should come back to my home for two more weeks.

Two days after we arrived back in Pennsylvania, Belinda went out shopping by herself. That evening she presented me with a warm kiss and a wrapped present. I was excited with what I saw after taking of the wrapping paper. Belinda had bought a vibrator for me, to match her own. That night we two partners tried things that neither had experienced before. The next day we agreed that I should go to visit Belinda in two weeks to meet her sons.

While she was still in Pennsylvania I also introduced Belinda to Coreen Reddick, and we made a double appointment with Coreen to have our hair set. First, she trimmed my permanent-waved hair and brushed it into its full, large curls. While I was under the dryer, she cut Belinda's blonde hair in a medium-length layered style and began to style it. Seeing Belinda and me together and recognizing that I had once been Cy, another patron of Coreen's screamed at us, "What a perversion it is for a man to have his hair appearing so feminine."

Coreen told the woman, "You need to let people be themselves. You must keep a civil tongue in my salon." I was so pleased that, whereas a half-year before I would have gotten all tense with such a scene, when Coreen stood up for me, I simply glowed. Belinda smiled, too.

The plane trip I would take to California would be nothing new, since I had flown in women's clothes back and forth across the ocean. But it was the first where I'd use my driver's license as my ID. I decided that I had better change the picture on my driver's license to look like I now did. I had appeared as a woman to the immigration officer upon my return, but appearing feminine in front of the motor vehicles officer still caused me some concern. But I decided that my only choice was to dress smartly but in a feminine way. So I wore a silk white button blouse over my prettiest white lace bra, dark blue women's pants with a straight leg, and my simple black career shoes with its 2-inch heel over black knee-highs. I kept my makeup moderate. When I appeared at the license bureau, I applied for a new license, and under "Reason" I wrote "Strong change of appearance necessitates a new picture."

I was required to attach my present license. When my turn came, the DMV official looked at the application, and smiling but without any mocking tone, she said "I'll say your appearance has changed!" She proceeded to take the new picture and told me to wait until the new license came out of the machine.

When my name, "Cyrus," was called and I arose, one of the other license applicants showed her astonishment, but I found myself to be calm. I took the license and stared at the picture. There was a nice looking woman apparently imaged there. "Wow!" I thought. "This is the life for me!"

When I packed for my trip to California, I, of course, selected only feminine clothes. I wore a light blue shell, a grey pant suit, and 3-inch pumps over taupe knee-highs. Going through security at the airport, I presented my new ID and said my name was Cyndi, and though the checker wondered how a woman named Cyndi could have the official name of Cyrus, he did not even blink, giving me a lot of confidence. On the plane I responded pleasantly and in as feminine a voice as I could manage when the person in the next seat said hello. "What a difference this is to my gruff exterior on trips in years gone by," I ruminated, "and what a difference in my comfort in my appearance from when I first went out in public as Cyndi!"

When my plane arrived at the airport, I first went to the ladies restroom to freshen my makeup, so as to look my prettiest for my darling Belinda. When passed out of security, Belinda, as pretty as ever in a tank top and shorts, was waiting. Belinda and I, two feminine individuals, embraced and kissed, our lipstick perfumes mixing entrancingly to us both.

When Belinda and I arrived at Belinda's condo, Belinda's two sons were waiting to greet us and meet their father's new boyfriend, Cyndi. They immediately approved of my attractiveness and civilized ways, and before they left, they and I were friends. Belinda had told them that she had fallen in love with me, and the next day they advised their dad, "You should accept an offer to be Cyndi's bride, should she ask."

On the third day of her visit, I gave Belinda a single long-stemmed rose, got down on my pink capri covered knees, and said with great feeling. "Belinda, I will always love you! Let's grow old together. Will you marry me?"

Belinda accepted, saying "It is so sweet to be proposed to, rather than having to get up the courage of doing it myself, as was the case with my first marriage."

How happy we both were! We planned an October wedding in my hometown in Pennsylvania and excitedly envisioned a double gown ceremony at a local inn, with Tisha, Jena, Karen Parker, and Coreen Reddick as female attendants and Belinda's sons as best man and usher.

Belinda said she wanted to invite her ex-wife, and I was OK with that. A week later Belinda emailed me that her ex-wife said she would not come, but she offered her the veil and train that she had worn during their wedding. Both Belinda and I were really touched at that gesture.

Two weeks later, I contacted my department chairman and announced my retirement. The week after that I began a search for a pretty and appropriate wedding outfit. What I had in mind took a long search on websites and at bridal stores. I wanted a feminine wedding outfit with pants. I still almost always wore pants, as I felt my legs were not truly feminine looking despite their being much curvier than in years before. What I finally found consisted of a strapless top with a beaded bosom and a full-length full skirt split to the waist at the front, under which white silk flowing pants were worn. These pants stopped above the white heeled sandals I would wear at the wedding and had brought along to the shop, and their bottoms were in a scalloped pattern dotted with small holes surrounded radially by tightly sewn silver threads.

Belinda, on the other hand, being the bride and being a woman, shopped for a traditional wedding gown. She e-mailed that as she shopped, she found herself attracted to gowns with a straight, full-length skirt and was absolutely entranced by a beautiful wedding gown of peau de soie. The straight skirt was set off by a lace-covered top with a sweetheart neckline and short sleeves.

A week before the wedding in October Belinda flew to my house, where she and I would make their new home. Two days later a moving van arrived, with Belinda's belongings. We two feminine spouses to be were like young lovers as we combined our belongings.

Coreen Reddick agreed to do the hair and makeup for both the bride and the groom, or perhaps it was both brides. On the day before the wedding she prepared my hair for a formal updo, while curls full of body were infused in Belinda's shorter hair, with wisps curling over her entrancing cheeks. Coreen chose a fall to add a luxurious long tress down to the middle of Belinda's back on the wedding day.

While Belinda was having her hair done by Coreen, I asked Coreen's assistant to do my nails for the wedding. I got nail extensions with a beautiful deep iridescent pink polish on them. This was the first time I had worn extended nails; I wanted to be beautiful for my bride at our wedding.

Belinda and I got married the next day in my pretty, wooded backyard, which the caterer had prepared to have a carpeted aisle, tables to eat at, and a portable dance floor. In preparation Coreen Reddick came over early and put my hair in its glorious updo and did the final touches on Belinda's hair, adding the lovely fall. Belinda went into the other bedroom to change into her gown, which the groom was not allowed to see her in till the ceremony.

Then I took off my nylon robe, exposing my satin, white panties embroidered with large white flowers. I pulled on the strapless longline bra that I had owned for years, my "something old". "But as compared to the last time I wore that bra," I mused, "I have a whole different chest shape for that bra to support and a very attractive cleavage." The bra had garters, which I had not used before, and it had taken some searching in my drawers to find those straps. To them I attached silky white stockings with blue ribbons intertwined at the top and blue hearts sewn into the ankles. This was my "something blue". I then pulled on my white satin pants, and stepped into the lovely gown with the split overskirt. Jena then helped her father by buttoning the many white, cloth-covered buttons that went from the top of the skirt up the back of the bodice of my strapless gown. With the beautiful skirt still brushing the floor, I buckled on my strappy white 3˝-inch heeled sandals, in which I was now fully comfortable. I had attached rhinestone decorations that I had borrowed for the wedding from Tisha; these decorations were my "something borrowed". Now the skirt just brushed the floor, as it was designed. Karen then adjusted the large white satin bow at the back of the skirt and attached the lovely train that was part of this wedding ensemble. A few steps convinced me of the feminine challenges of walking in this beautiful outfit.

Standing in front of a full length mirror, I placed my beautiful, long lace covered veil over my upswept hair. That veil was the one Marsha had worn at my first wedding. The symbolism of both brides now wearing the veils of their former wives was tantalizing.

As the wedding ceremony began, Belinda's older son, the best man, and her younger son, the usher, both stood at the altar. Then the procession began. First, my cute granddaughter Carla, the flower girl, scattered rose petals down the aisle. Karen Parker and Coreen Reddick followed, looking lovely in their violet bridesmaids' gowns. Then Jena walked down, resplendent in her bridesmaid's gown, hand in hand with her father. While it was unusual in our tradition to have the groom in the procession, I wanted everyone to see me in my gorgeous wedding gown-pants outfit. Later in the receiving line many of the guests told me they were astounded at the sight and were extremely impressed with how pretty a man in his sixties could be. I was greatly affected by the feel of my satin pants against my nylon clad legs, enhanced by the rustling of my open long, luscious skirt against my pants, as well as the feel of walking in my lovely white high-heeled sandals.

Then the matron of honor, Tisha, preceded her stepmother to be. She was followed by Belinda, with a beautiful smile showing under her lovely veil. As I looked back at my bride, I was overcome by her loveliness and my love for her.

As I took my vows to Belinda, I saw and felt myself in this lovely wedding gown opposite my new wife in her gorgeous gown. "This is the beginning of new period in my life, full of beauty," I thought.

Then we were proclaimed man and wife, and each of us moved back the lovely veil of the other before we embraced and our made up faces met in a long kiss.

After the ceremony, the reception began with a receiving line. One by one, the guests came up to the pair of bridally attired spouses, hugged each of us, and told us how beautiful we looked. Both Belinda and I were out of our minds with delight.

As the reception line ended, the band struck up a slow foxtrot, and I led Belinda out onto the dance floor. I realized that I needed to lead, even though I was wearing this beautiful feminine clothing, because Belinda would expect to be treated as the woman she was. Both of us had detached our trains, but our two gowns rustled strongly, especially because our skirts were continuously touching each other. So were our bosoms, I am still excited to report. "What a thrilling dance!" both brides thought. "How nice it is to be able to look so feminine in front of my family and friends," I reflected.

After the guests left, Belinda and I went back into our house. We each retired to a bathroom and came out wearing a most beautiful wedding peignoir. Adoringly, we took out our vibrators and had an absolutely astounding night of sex. I thought, "I never thought sex would again be as good as this!"

In the morning after our exciting wedding night, I had a moment to think about the life ahead of Belinda and me. It was a second marriage for us both, but it would be completely unlike the first for both of us. "How lucky we are to have such a fresh direction to our way of life!" I marveled. "It's almost like having two separate lives, both wonderful."

I compared what I expected of my upcoming life to the many years married to Marsha and the year and a half since. I analyzed, "Marsha, rest her soul, would not recognize my present appearance, but she would see that kind, loving person that I always was and she helped me to be. She enhanced my nature; my new dressing decisions and my new relationship with Belinda has enhanced it further."

My analysis continued: "I absolutely loved Marsha, but I had had two major sources of tension, raising grant money and wishing but being unable frequently to crossdress. In my last year my tension sprang from my grief over my loss of Marsha and from fear of embarrassment of appearing in a feminine way. But now I love Belinda. And in my new marriage my final years will be striking by the lack of tension for me. I love who I am and how I appear, and I now understand that enough of the world can accept me and my lovely wife that we can be comfortable in our love."

  

  

  

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