That Weekend

by Vickie Tern

 

i.

My negotiations in Baltimore went faster than I'd expected, no need to stay the weekend and finish up on Monday or Tuesday, so early Friday morning I booked a flight back and a few hours later when I arrived home I picked up a small bottle of my wife's favorite perfume before heading out to my car. A peace offering, we'd quarreled about something trivial just before I left, why I hadn't cut the grass or cleared the table, or something. Nothing. But there'd been a lot of those lately, arguments about nothing. Something bigger was bothering her that she wouldn't talk about. This weekend I meant to ask her what it was.

Then when I got home something didn't feel quite right. A chair or two out of place—Joan is meticulous about such things. I headed for a beer while musing about it and found half a bottle of wine uncovered in the fridge, and wine glasses unpropped in the dishwasher as if hastily put there. From the night before, she'd had a friend over? And the back door was ajar. Someone had just left?

"Joan?" I called out up the stairs. Then "Joan?" out the rear door, figuring she'd gone into the back garden. No answer. She wasn't home? Her car was here.

Puzzled, I carried my suitcase upstairs and into our bedroom. The first thing I saw was a badly mussed bed. Even more puzzling. And clothes were strewn everywhere. "Joan?" I called out again.

This time she answered. Her voice was not welcoming. It was furious!

"Who is she?!" rang from our adjoining bathroom. "You two-timing shit, who is she?"

The bathroom door opened I saw her standing there still in her nightgown, disheveled, livid, hair all awry and eyes glaring like some vengeful vampire woman. "Who is she, Jerry?" she practically screamed! Her face was wet, as if she'd been crying. Or as if I'd interrupted her as she rinsed off her tears—there was still gray eye shadow smeared across an eyelid. She'd worn eye-shadow today? Friday, her work-at-home day? Left over from yesterday? But she always creams it off, every night. And she hasn't dressed yet.

Such are the dumb thoughts you get unbidden even in the middle of a ferocious crisis. And this was a crisis, plainly. A catastrophe maybe—Joanie was obviously outraged, out of her mind! Baffled, I looked at her, then all around the room, then again at the bed. And then I understood.

I'd been found out. The clothes strewn all over were mine!

She'd found my stash. My beloved women's clothes. Both valises full and a box as well, all stuffed way back in my closet! They were now all over the bed and the floor.

I hadn't dressed for months, not that I didn't want to, but there'd been no time. My new business had recently reached a make-or-break phase and needed my full attention. And no opportunity either—Joan had taken to working from home when she could instead of her company's office, and her schedule had become unpredictable.

I missed dressing up, the sacred ritual of remaking myself to resemble a beloved object of desire I could admire in the mirror to my heart's content. And in fact if I do say so I'd gotten skilled enough at it to make myself look quite pretty. I thought so, anyway. But of course I could never take the slightest chance, the faintest risk that she'd ever discover me. She'd be disgusted by me, outraged by my deception and demeaned to find herself married to a man who wanted to look and feel like a woman now and then. A transvestite. A pervert. She was a straight arrow and a straight woman as well as a tough lady, decisive in everything. She'd stare at me and decide flat out to leave me, I knew it! And if she did decide to leave me, she would!

I'd missed those few hours stolen from workday mornings or afternoons when I could make myself attractive to myself and in that way renew acquaintance with my own feminine feelings. It was exciting—I always felt I was trespassing in disguise in some dangerous, forbidden place. It was also sexually exciting—when I'd had enough of primping and admiring myself I'd make slow, gentle love to the lady in the mirror. I'd lie back languorously and rub my elongated clit until it felt exquisite sensations, and work my lubricated finger in and out of my chaste anal vagina until I came to a glorious orgasm. It was wonderful, those hours spent exploring my feminine self.

But none of that mattered now. I looked around. Dresses and bras and slips were scattered on the floor. My skirts and blouses were tumbled in their valise. My make-up case was open on the bed. A rumpled bed, partly unmade. That figured. I pieced the clues together. She'd found my stuff and her first impulse had been to run away, and she'd actually gotten as far as the back door. Then she'd rushed back and flung herself on the bed, and she'd been lying there crying. I felt devastated, as much for her as for me, but most of all for our marriage. My life as I'd known it was over.

My heart went out to her. "You've been crying," I said softly, as sorry for her as for myself.

"I've been what?" For a moment she stared at me, baffled. Then glanced at the bed and understood. Then returned her attention to me, her eyes narrowing again. Now her voice was acid. "So whose are these, Jerry? Who's the tramp? What woman have you been harboring here? Who do you fuck when I'm not here? Who lives here when I'm away on business?"

It was obvious. My only salvation, or my marriage's only salvation, was to tell all. Full disclosure, Endure the worst to avoid worse still, maybe. "These clothes," I said, gesturing at the scattered piles on the bed and the floor. "They're all mine."

I paused. She stared at me, incredulous.

"I'm the tramp," I added. "I'm the woman." It sounded odd to say it. Then lamely, I added, "I live here."

"You!" she said, almost numb from this revelation. As I already was.

"I wear these things," I said as if that explained everything. "I like it. I guess I'm what they call a transvestite." I almost added 'I'm sorry!' but I didn't. I wasn't. And this was truth time.

"These are your things? Not leftovers from some floosie you bedded down in my bed? They're yours?" As I'd most feared would happen when she found out, if she ever did, her lip curled in contempt. She just stared at me. I looked back at her. No, it wasn't contempt. Not yet. It was disbelief! She simply didn't believe me. "They're your dresses? Your pantyhose? Your ... bras, even?" She looked at my chest as if anyone could see there the obvious evidence that I was telling an outrageous lie. Or the lack of evidence. I was getting confused.

"Mine," I continued in a small voice, my confidence wilting even as I spoke. "All mine." Then hopefully, desperately, I added, "It's true, Joanie! It's true!" Tears started in my eyes. "Think, why would some floosie leave all these clothes here? They're all in my size! They all fit me!" I started to add with a certain pride, 'and they aren't floosie clothes, they're in good taste,' but I cut myself off. I was fearful I'd convey the wrong thing.

"Oh?" she said, her voice rich with skepticism. "These are all your clothes? You're a transvestite?"

"Yes," I said.

"Why should I believe you?" she asked scornfully. She studied me. Then looked at the litter in the two suitcases and on the bed. And the floor. Then back at me. Then suddenly she spat out, "Prove it!"

"What!?"

"Prove it! Show me! I'm going downstairs! I'll wait for you downstairs. Take your time, get dressed in them! Put on a show! This oughta be good, MISS Jerry!! You'd better be telling me the truth!"

"Joan!" I tried to say in a desperate, exasperated, conciliatory, reassuring voice, though all that came out was a plaintive whine. I felt for words like 'be reasonable,' and 'be patient, let's talk about this like adults,' and 'I'm not lying, Joan, I've never lied to you, just not told you everything' But she'd taken her salmon silk robe and put it on and swept to the door. Then turned.

"Make it good, Jerry baby!" she said with warning in her voice. Or was it menace? "This is your one big chance!"

And she was gone from the room. Barefoot, I suddenly realized. Still wearing her nightgown. A rather pretty one I'd gotten her for our anniversary, from the same place I'd gotten one for myself, though I'd had few opportunities to wear mine, only when she was out of town on business. She'd found my things first thing this morning, I supposed, and had rushed around the house and then finally flung herself down on the bed to weep her way through the evidence of my infidelity. I wondered if I'd have done the same thing.

It seemed a desecration of sorts, my women's clothes all over the bed and the floor. I was never careful with my men's clothes—they lay where they fell usually. But my women's clothes always seemed to me a lot more precious. More fragile. Being a woman was in part a matter of being careful about your appearance.

I decided to get to my own appearance. Begin with a shower and a thorough depillation, no need to hide hairlessness any longer with half-way measures. Then close-shave, three times, until all of my facial hairs ended well below my skin's surfaces. Then a lilac-scented skin cream. Then body powder scented the same way—she hadn't found that, it was still in a box far back in my closet. Then a volumizing gel for my hair, and then I put it up on the rollers also still hidden in the back of my closet. Today I'd wear my own hair, in a page-boy flip, not one of my wigs. I had to be absolutely persuasive. This was my one big chance—she'd called it that herself. If I couldn't persuade her that these were my clothes and I knew how to wear them appropriately, that I was indeed a transvestite, that I hadn't betrayed my vows of fidelity to her, my marriage was over. Not that it wasn't anyhow, once she saw with her own eyes the truth about me. But this was the only avenue she'd left me. I had to out-do myself.

There was no time to do my nails—but fortunately, they were already neatly tipped, the cuticles pushed back, and protected by a three layers of clear matte finish. The lady at the Nail Factory had assured me the style was unisexual, good grooming for men or women, though few men ever wore them that long or polished. I took fifteen minutes to do my face, pink blush brushed over an ivory foundation, and liquid eye liner this time, to save my marriage I told myself, fortunately it came out looking perfect. And dark brown eye-shadow. And a pale, creamy lipstick that seemed to glow—I'd loved the shade the moment I first saw it in a Vogue magazine at the salon where my nails were done weekly and I had my hair trimmed to look sexually ambiguous.

When I was near the closet I could hear Joan speaking to someone on the phone from downstairs. To a lawyer? I couldn't be sure. When I picked up our bedside phone, all I heard was a 'click.' Then a few minutes later the same thing. Who knows who she was calling? I had to hope that if she was asking for advice, it was from friends favorable to my side of things. It almost didn't matter to me that everyone would now know that I like to wear women's clothes. My marriage was at stake! They were indeed my clothes! But I had to prove it!

It was late afternoon, so I decided on one of my cocktail dresses, "ready to whirl into the evening and into the night in his arms," the tag on it had boasted, and it was indeed a very pretty full-skirted tissue faille in various muted earth tones, with a low belt line and a narrow, figure-hugging bodice. It fit my figure marvelously—that would certainly help persuade her! I thanked whatever gods look after people like me that I hadn't stopped for lunch that day, not even for a snack at an airport food court not so many hours ago. My stomach was flat. And when I'd fastened my bra and inserted my breast forms, and slipped into my dress, my chest looked gorgeous, two hemispheres extending way forward. I was a woman again! I put on my shoes, matching sandals with three-inch heels, not too extreme, and I was almost ready. I then took the curlers out of my hair and blow-dried and brushed out a bouncing page-boy. Then I checked myself in the mirror again—perfect. I had to smile with satisfaction.

Then I went down to the kitchen to show myself to Joan and find out my fate.

She was sitting there with a drink in her hand. Scotch on rocks, her usual afternoon cocktail. I'd taken some time, she'd had several? She looked at me carefully, critically. Then her voice softened.

"You aren't bad looking at all, honey," she said. I found hope in that 'honey.' "You're really cute. Very feminine. Your make-up is perfect. You really have done this before, haven't you?"

I nodded, my anxiety melting. I'm sure I looked poignant and relieved all at once. There were tears in my eyes.

"That dress is lovely. The style's quite flattering. In the future, you shouldn't hide your figure the way you do."

Was she being ironic? She sounded sincere enough! My heart leaped. "Thank you," I replied in the soft, flute-pitched voice I'd practiced so often but no one else had ever heard until this moment.

"I do wish I'd known earlier about this ... interest of yours. I could have helped. We could have made girl talk. I could have asked your advice about my own hairdos, and salons, and we could have gossiped together about which of our friends were cheating with which others. Whether we have the same taste in men. You know."

Now she was being ironic. "I wish I'd told you earlier," I said in all earnestness, in the same feminine voice. It seemed suitable enough. "I hated your not knowing. It always seemed to separate us somehow. But I was always afraid how you'd take it."

She nodded understandingly. But what did she understand? "So tell me about this, Jerry," she said. "Are you like those tranny women on Oprah? You wanted to be a girl from a very young age, and then you started dressing like one when you hit adolescence and found that you loved it? That it felt sexy?"

"I never wanted to be a girl, exactly," I replied. "Just to look like one, maybe feel like one. Not to have to be a boy all the time." I was ready to confess everything! This wasn't a disaster! Maybe it was the reverse!

I had to ask her, just to be sure. "So now you're convinced? You do know now that these clothes really are mine? That I haven't been unfaithful to you?"

She seemed to find this question amusing. "Oh Jerry! Unfaithful? Look at you! To be unfaithful to a woman you have to seem to be a man, at least to some woman somewhere. You aren't a man! You're very good at this, you know? Obviously you've spent all your spare time doing this, with no time left over for other women! And what kind of man would do that? You don't look at all like a man. You don't sound like a man. I can't imagine you ever were a man when I see you dressed like this." I waited now for what I knew would be her zinger, and it came, in a quiet but steely tone. "Tell me, Miss Jerry, can you honestly call yourself a man?"

This was catty, cruel. She'd probably had a few before I came in. I just stood there. Honesty, honesty! "Not now, no, I can't. Not when I'm dressed like this. I like to think I'm a woman when I'm dressed like this." This was a little unsettling.

"You know something?" she said. "I'm thinking the same thing. I can't call you a man either. Nor think of you as a man."

She may have meant that as an insult, but I resolved to think of it as a compliment. She looked me up and down carefully, as if imprinting my image in her memory. I instinctively lifted my chin and put one hand on my hip, and turned my torso a little to one side, in a relaxed pose like a model's. And smiled, maybe a little anxiously. Be proud, I told myself. You have nothing to be ashamed of.

"I really don't know," she continued. "You actually like looking like this? Going through all the froufrou rituals women go through to look decent each day? You prefer looking like this to looking like a man?"

There was no point in hiding anything from her now. No more lies. No more deception. "I like it, yes. I do enjoy all the froufrou rituals as you call them." She waited, saying nothing. "Now and then." She still waited, looking at me with those wide, wide eyes, listening, expressing nothing. I saw she'd cleaned away her smudged eye shadow, and her small, lovely face looked luminous, expectant. I couldn't read her thoughts at all. Finally I added. "I need to do it now and then, Joan. It's kind of a compulsion I suppose. I love it!"

She remained unperturbed. "Yes, I've heard that about men who want to be women, though I never imagined I'd ever find myself married to one." She sighed. "You just might find it a little less enjoyable if you had to do our things daily instead of just 'now and then.' Have you thought of doing yourself up daily? Living like a woman all the time? Or becoming a woman in fact, going all the way? Getting a nookie of your own installed between your legs?"

"No, never!"

"Afraid?"

"No. I just don't want to."

"How about breasts? Those you're wearing are lovely, and nicely proportioned to your figure, you do have good taste, but haven't you ever wanted to get the kind that are part of you? The kind that feel wonderful when a man caresses them? You've imagined what that must be like, haven't you?"

I couldn't deny it. About the breasts, I mean, not about the man. But I said nothing. She nodded, as if my silence confirmed something. And nodded again, as if settling something in her own mind. "If you had breasts, I'd never have to worry about you with other women, would I?" she said half-aloud, half to herself. I got the impression she'd said it that way for my benefit, and I began to feel uneasy again. "Well, why don't you get yourself a drink and sit down, and we'll talk."

Since I didn't dare let myself get addled at this crucial juncture, I poured myself a mineral water on ice and decided to sip it as if it were something stronger. And sat down opposite her. I noticed I was holding the glass as women do, as if exhibiting the delicacy of my hands. Playing the part without thinking.

"Well, dear, since we can't either of us call you a man, I guess I'll have to think of you as a woman. How womanly are you?" She paused and again I braced myself to flinch. "Do you have a boyfriend, sweetie? You can tell me."

Again, terms of endearment. As if I were her husband after all? Or her new girlfriend? Did she seem worried? No, she was being edgy. Sarcastic.

So I got defensive. "No, Joan, no girlfriend, you know that now, and no boyfriend either. I'm not gay, and I don't want either. Only you. You've always been the only person in my life, of either sex. And I've never been out of the house dressed this way. I've been satisfied to pretend in private. I've been afraid to risk going further. No one knows about this but you. No one has ever seen me like this but me, and now you."

My vehemence softened her voice. "I appreciate that, Jerry. And everything you've just said. But what you've also told me is that you really don't know yet how far this goes, this compulsion of yours to be a woman." I began to protest, so she corrected herself quickly. "This compulsion to pretend to be a woman, so you can feel like one, is that any better?"

I nodded.

"Supposedly feel like one, as if dressing like a woman in private was the only thing a woman ever feels like doing."

Had her tart tone returned? "Joan, I haven't done this for months. If it offends you that much, I'll never do it again!" Not true, and she knew it! "I mean, I'll try never to do it again!" I was near tears. "I'll really try!" I meant it, though I knew that of course I'd fail. And if she knew as much about transvestites as she seemed to know, she knew it too.

Now she seemed quite serious, even concerned. "Jerry, listen. I can't possibly ask that of you. You'd try and you'd fail, and you'd hate yourself, and hide it from me again, and who knows how that would end up? And the fact is, I now know all about you. We have a new relationship, one of absolute honesty between us, unlike our old relationship, where in my innocence I thought I was married to a man and you in your guilt hid your ... womanly desires from me. What will happen with this new relationship remains to be seen. But what I see right now is that I'm married to a sort of a woman. And that there should be no further secrets between us. We both need to accept that!

I felt injured. "You're still married to a man!" I insisted. "I'm still a man."

"Not now. Not when you're dressed like this. You just said so yourself."

She was right. I had nothing to say. "But otherwise," I muttered weakly.

"Otherwise isn't at issue here. What you are is at issue. We need to see just see how much of a woman you are when you're dressed like this. What kind of woman. How far this impulse or compulsion you speak of wants to carry you. We don't know what we're dealing with here, do we? I'll go up and change, I'll only be a moment. Finish your drink and go get your purse, if you have one. We're going out."

"Joan! No!" I practically shouted. In terror!

She stood up and looked down at me, and spoke in a firm, level voice. "Honey, you want to look like a woman? How can I respect you unless you're willing to act like one? You need to pretend you're what every woman is, in all sorts of ways. You need a social identity. You need to be seen, to know you're being seen, to be known to be a woman, to be proud of what you are and how you look. To be with other women. And like it or not, with men. So we're going out!" She headed out of the kitchen without waiting for a reply, then paused and turned and smiled. "Don't worry, you're quite passable. Quite convincing. Look how you've convinced me, after all! You're doing very well, girlfriend! You're on a roll!"

 

And she was gone. 'Girlfriend,' she'd called me. My fondest dream had been that she'd sometimes think of me that way, call me that. But now I wasn't so sure.

She reappeared. Fetching in a summer dress with a wide skirt like mine, but with a deep neckline exposing her cleft, and carrying a shawl. It was warm now, but the nights were cool. She expected us to be out after dark? "Ready?" she asked me with an expectant grin, eyes sparkling. "I think this'll be fun! Found your purse yet?"

 

"I don't have a purse," I replied timorously, my stomach where my heart should be, my heart in my mouth. I had to pay this price to maintain her respect, I told myself. "I've never needed one."

 

"Then we'll have to get you one, won't we," she replied instantly. "But I thought so, so meanwhile here, use this one." And she produced a clutch bag in the same earth-tone as my skirt. "A perfect match, don't you think? Run upstairs and fill it with everything girls need when they goes out. Wallet, keys, your current shade of lipstick and mascara, hanky, a few tampons, a few condoms. You know I'm sure, you've played this game. We may not be back till late."

 

"Joanie, I don't think ...."

 

"Jerry, don't think! We're going out. Either together or separately. If separately, then one of us spends the night in a motel tonight and then talks to a lawyer first thing in the morning, I don't much care which one of us. Because you playing secret games with yourself, pretending to be someone you're not, or not yet, is unworthy of anyone I care to live with and insulting to me and unacceptable. That's how it is."

 

I went up and filled the purse exactly as specified. She was twisting the knife by specifying those last two items I knew, tampons and condoms, but I didn't want to take any chances. I knew where she kept her tampons, and the condoms I found in one of my back drawers, dating from far back before Joanie went on the pill. It was just as well.

 

When I got downstairs again she said simply, "Show me!" so I opened my purse and showed her. She smiled, a satisfied smile that cheered me up. This might not be too tense an excursion after all! "Good, honey! I love it! Those condoms are a little old, I suspect, but you're not likely to get pregnant tonight anyhow. I forgot to ask, you aren't on the pill by any chance, are you?"

 

"No," I said.

 

"Many transvestites are, I hear. It helps them feel more womanly, and it gives their bodies certain womanly traits, so they look more womanly. That's what you want, isn't it? To look and feel more womanly?"

 

"Joanie, I ...."

She grinned sociably. "Oh, c'mon, girlfriend. Maybe I'm teasing you." She paused. "Maybe."

"Joanie, I don't know what you're doing. I don't know where you're going with this. You found some of my clothes and now you're pushing me way further than I want to go with this under threat of divorce. I don't know what's teasing and what isn't!"

"No, you don't, do you?" Her voice was level again as she turned toward the door. "But you're finding it exciting, aren't you? A whole new dimension has been added to our marriage, hasn't it?"

I couldn't deny it. "Yes," I said. "Scary but exciting."

"Trust me, Jerry. I knew the moment you came down and I saw you that this is how it has to be. I'll drive, I know where we're going even if you don't. By the way, I can't keep calling you Jerry, can I? Have you thought about that?"

"Yes," I said glumly. Another secret of my fantasy life now to be revealed. "You can call me 'Jerry' if you spell it 'Jeri" in your head. That's what I do."

"No, too similar. You aren't at all the Jerry I married, remember, my pet. Let's not confuse the two. And the Jeri you like to think you are is about to be left behind, here in this house. You're too chic and soignee to stay hidden, mon cher. Mon cher, you like that? How about 'Cherie'? That's what all those French maid transvestites are supposed to wish they were called, isn't it? No, I can see you don't care for that. How about 'Sherry'? Close enough but different enough?

"Yes," I said. I was beginning to wonder whether she really was improvising on the spot. She was always quick and decisive, true, but this almost seemed to be something thought out in advance. Maybe while I was dressing and she was sitting downstairs alone with that bottle of Scotch. Maybe during those phone calls? Was I being set up? For what? Why?

 

 

 

ii.

We settled into the car and she started the engine. I reached over and turned it off again. She looked at me. "Joanie, before I go anywhere further with you, where are we going?"

She looked back at me. "Fair question. Just remember, you don't have a choice as I see it, but I guess you're entitled to know. First, Kara's place. Kara's my closest friend, and any close friend of mine has to be a close friend of yours too if we're to be girlfriends. I sort of like the idea of us as three girls together, all good friends. Calling each other up, chatting. It'll be good for your feminine image of yourself. You'd like that, wouldn't you? So Kara will help us get it started."

She was right. That had always been one of my fantasies, being a girl among other girls, accepted by them as one of them. "I guess. But ... Joanie, I'm still afraid. Of seeming ridiculous. Does she have to know it's me? Can't I be my sister or something? Does she have to know? About me, I mean?"

Joan looked hard at me, and then started the engine again and backed out of the driveway. Then looking straight ahead, she said. "That's the man in you speaking, afraid he'll seem ridiculous. As well he might, he is! Face it, any man who tries to be womanly is ridiculous. He's a freak. So forget him! Be all the woman you can be, the one you'd like to feel you are, and you'll be just fine. Be proud of who you are!"

She was right. I had to suppress those fears. I am what I am, I told myself. And almost persuaded myself.

Then an unexpected revelation. "Besides, Kara already knows. I phoned and told her all about this while you were dressing. What you'd claimed. Don't be shocked. She offered to help out, and I've taken her up on it. She's a physician, and a plastic surgeon at that, how could I not tell her? She knows all about transvestites and transsexuals and men who want to be women. Who want to look like women. Here's a secret. I believed you when you first said those clothes were yours. Because no real woman would ever leave lovely dresses like those packed away in suitcases, getting all wrinkled. They're for wearing, for being seen! And you're so transparent, so utterly without guile, my darling, that's why you've always been such a lovely man. I can always tell when you're telling the truth and when you're shading the truth a little."

"I'm a lovely man? After all?"

"I didn't say that." She paused, still looking straight ahead. "You were, that's for certain." Then glanced at me and grinned a pixie grin. Still teasing me?

"So you weren't surprised to find that I was speaking the truth? Why did you make me get dressed up at all then? Why all this?"

Her face became impassive. "Because we can't go back, Sherry. I know, and you know I know. So we have to go ahead. You're like a new puppy born with huge feet, in a way. You know how a puppy has to grow into his feet until they're normal for his size? That's you with these womanly urges. The rest of your womanliness needs a chance to grow to match your desire to look womanly. I want you to enjoy everything you are, and looking like a woman so you can feel like one is what you yourself want too, isn't it? Well, you need to grow into yourself if you can. If you can't, at least you'll know it, and we'll both be better able to accept you as you are. And meanwhile you'll want to share all of your new feelings with me, so I'll know all about them too, won't you?" She threw me a sharp glance. "Which is not the way things were before today, were they?"

No, they weren't. She had me. I should have told her years ago. A pang of guilt intruded on my general nervous anxiety, and I said no more until she pulled into Kara's driveway. "Does Hal know too?" I suddenly asked anxiously. Hal was Kara's husband.

Joanie turned toward me as she opened her door. "That's the man in you asking again, isn't it? Men do feel so competitive with each other, don't they? They're so fearful of seeming unmanly. Well, maybe the woman in you should be hoping he does know. Maybe she should be glad that she's no longer jockeying for position with him in the male pecking order. Maybe she should be looking forward to flirting with him? Hal flirts with every woman he sees, you know that, women and girls of every age and disposition. That's his charm. Women love it. And some of the fun of being a woman is flirting back, you should know that too. Harmlessly of course. Mostly harmlessly. So aren't you looking forward to teasing Hal, maybe arousing him just a little?"

I swallowed hard. She wanted me to play the role, so I'd play it. I owed her. I had no choice anyhow. "Yes, I guess so."

"Oh, what a shame, Hal's out of town this week. We'll just have to find you some other guy to get girlish with." And she smiled a dazzling smile at me, expecting me to share in appreciation of the joke she'd just pulled. I managed to grin back at her. Sort of. "Remember to take your purse," she said, and got out of the car.

I had to get it out into the open now, before we went any further. "You keep emphasizing the sexual part of being a woman, Joan," I told her as we walked toward Kara's front door and Joan rang the bell, and we waited. "What with all this talk of my wanting to attract boys, or men, and flirting, and so on. Why? I'm not attracted to men. I like women. What if it turns out that the woman in me is a lesbian? What then?"

"Why, then we'd just have to find you another lesbian to play with, wouldn't we? It'd be easier if you preferred men, but we can't always choose, and anyhow, you don't really know for sure, do you? Not yet." She hesitated, then she added, "I have a problem too, honey, though I don't really know for sure either. I'm not a lesbian. At least, not that I know. I don't sleep with women." She flashed a smile at me. Apologetic? Regretful? Dismissive?

She seemed to be pulling me closer as her newfound girlfriend, and she seemed to want me closer, yet she also seemed to be pushing me away as her sexual partner. The more womanly I became, the less attractive to her? This would take some thinking through.

She paused, then turned quite serious for a moment. "Men play very big roles in the ways women feel, honey. Very! Maybe bigger roles than women usually play in men's lives. In your case, a love of the womanly seems to be inborn, it seems to have penetrated you to the core, but that's not true for most men. I wouldn't want to deprive you of anything women love to feel. And her attractiveness to a man is an important part of any woman's pride in herself. When you know you're attractive, there's a special pleasure women take simply in being women."

I was silent. Not at all happy.

"Anyhow, cheer up Sherry, maybe you're bi-sexual. If you're bi-gendered, as it seems, maybe you're bi-sexual too but don't yet know it? And maybe we'll luck out and I'll turn out to be bi-sexual too?" Another dazzling grin.

Her jestings and evasions were beginning to get annoying. If that's what they were. I forgot altogether that I was standing on the front steps of her closest friend, my hair in a suave page boy, wearing full makeup and a wide skirt with clingy top rising from a dropped waistline, looking every inch a woman and a pretty one at that, if I could believe my wife wasn't just flattering me. "Joan," I said in my man's voice. No pretending now. "Didn't all this start with whether or not we've been true to each other? Over a small matter of marital fidelity? About your questioning whether I've been faithful to you? So what's all this about me with other men? Or other women?"

She looked at me. Directly into my eyes. Hers were a clear blue. "Yes, it did start that way. It certainly did. Because we're married, so we owe each other certain obligations. To understand and be open with each other and to try to forgive each other when we're not able to understand, and to help each other, that's one obligation. Or maybe all of them rolled into one. But that takes time. I'm trying to understand and help you. Patience sweetie, we're working on it."

And the door opened, and there was Kara, grinning broadly. "Come in, come in, I've been expecting you two," she said.

I did. Now I'd been outside dressed, briefly, and in a car, and now I was in someone else's home. As if I were an ordinary woman. Kara and Joan kissed each other briefly on the cheek. "And this is?" she asked Joan.

"Sherry," Joan said. "Sherry, this is Kara. Kara's my best friend. Then to Kara, "Sherry's been my other best friend for years and years. Her circumstances have changed recently, but I hope she still is, and that you'll get along."

"Oh I'm sure we will," Kara said, taking my hand and beaming at me. "Friendships go on and on through all sorts of changed circumstances. Isn't that so?"

She was speaking to me. "I suppose it is," I said in what was now my Sherry voice.

"I do hope you'll be my friend too," she said. She still hadn't let go of my hand.

"I hope so too," I said. No harm in saying so.

"Shall we, then?" she asked Joan, rather cryptically.

"The sooner the better, Kara," Joan replied.

"Relax your arm, then, Sherry, would you?" she said to me, pulling my hand close to her and then grasping my wrist gently, as if to examine my bracelet and manicure. She then produced a syringe out of nowhere, swiped a patch of my forearm, tipped the needle just under the skin, and pressed the plunger. I looked down at what she'd just done, then up into her eyes, silent, shocked.

"You'll love this, Sherry, never fear," she said, looking back into my eyes and watching my reaction closely. "It's just a tranquilizer, honey. Nothing to worry about. So you'll feel sort of comfy while we do the rest. None of this commits you to anything, but Joanie thinks it'll be best if I help you over every woman's first few hurdles, so you can decide for yourself whether you want to go further or just let it all lapse and go back to what you were. It'll all be your decision. But an informed decision, honey. This will make it easier."

I heard that much, and felt a little reassured somehow. Then I began to feel woozy. "What have you...?" I started to say.

I then entered into a strange mood. Relaxed, mellow. Unconcerned. No more talking, it didn't seem worth the bother. I could still hear Kara maintain a steady patter, I suppose to maintain what little consciousness remained to me, my awareness of an outer world, maybe to keep me awake. I sort of understood her, without really listening. I could still walk. Or sit. If I was told to, or reminded.

"Certainly, Joanie, go right ahead," Kara was saying. "Tend to your other things. She'll be fine. In maybe an hour? Better two, I'm sure that by then she'll feel like a very different girl, and then you can take her to dinner."

I felt her arm around my shoulder, urging me to walk. So I did. Through her house into a kind of annex.

"...my examination room, Sherry, I hold a Saturday clinic here for local teenagers, girls with acne who need light hormonal adjustments, things like that, nothing really serious of course. Yes, on that table. To the waist, you won't need that bra any more, I'll give you one with the kind of support you'll need for the next few days. This one's very pretty though—we'll be sure you remember to take it with you."

I was lying there on the table, relaxed, and there was someone else in the room. A nurse? I felt pinpricks in my chest all the while Kara was talking to her. "Yes, it's quite new, conjugated estrogenic collagen is what they call it. Liz Forter loved what happened when I injected her! She told her friends about it and then my phone never stopped ringing, not for two weeks. Pull the skin back here. And here too, please, we want her breasts to feel full as well as look full. That's it. I must have done a dozen patients that first week it came out. Why not? Even well-endowed women know that a protruding areola and a fat nipple turns men into mush, the right kind of men anyhow. And then there's this incredible increase in erogenous sensitivity too, so the woman can enjoy her gentleman's attentions as never before. That's done, now the other one. Yes, there. And now here. Perfect."

The other woman said something amusing, I guess, because Kara laughed. "Oh, maybe one cup size for about every ten milligrams, and that's something else men never complain about. Sherry here is getting thirty milligrams in each breast because she's beginning flat and her own body's estrogen can't help. She'll take slightly longer to replace these implants with her own tissue, maybe even a full month. Yes, she really was once a man, can you believe it? My best friend's husband. She still is a man down below, see for yourself if you like. But first let's get this prosthetic bra placed properly on her. There! Now she has the best of both worlds, breasts held well-shaped till they heal and new nipples fully exposed for play."

"Can you sit up, dear? Good! Now we're going back to the main part of the house, there's someone there waiting to meet you." Once erect, I felt a stiff binding tight on my torso, all around, and a weight on my chest that tugged my shoulders. Kara gave a playful flick to a nipple as I stood up, and I nearly died from the sudden suffusing pleasure! Oh, God what joy!

"Marvelous!" she said. "Plenty of feeling. That was a lovely shriek, Sherry. It all went very well, everything is obviously as it should be! Just remember not to remove your bra for a couple of days, you'll need the support until the gel sets. Now I want to give you one more injection, a memory drug this time, so you won't be especially aware of anything that happens during the next hour until Joan does the honors and reminds you of it in her own way. Then you'll recall it, whatever she wants you to recall of it. There."

I remember being guided back into Kara's living room. Things happened then sort of kaleidescopically. I felt involved yet inattentive, though it all felt good. I didn't know what, exactly, but it was nice. I kept at it until this woman returned and told me to stand up and tell Kara thank you and goodbye, which I did. Then the world began to come together again. Kara told her I was still a little zonked but I'd be out of it and altogether myself in another half-hour or so, so she should use the time to bring back my memory selectively. Joan led me back to the car and we sat there. It was dusk now, evening settling in. I looked at the darkening trees on Kara's quiet suburban street. Something had changed. It felt exciting. My chest felt so very marvelous!

"Do you remember who I am, honey?"

"You're Joanie," I smiled at her. "My wife Joanie." To my surprise she leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek. She was almost never that demonstrative.

"Your dearest girlfriend Joanie," she said. "We do love each other."

"Yes," I replied, because it was true.

"And what's your name, sweetheart?"

"Sherry," I replied. Then I felt confused. "No, Jerry," I said.

"Same thing, baby. "It's Sherry until we make some more permanent decisions. Until you know what you really and truly want it. All right?"

"All right."

"Do you remember what day this is?"

I strained, and remembered. "Friday?" I'd gotten back from my trip early Friday afternoon. It was still Friday?

"Yes. You got back from your trip early, and we've had a busy time ever since. You especially. Now we're going to dinner. The Bamboo Club. Don't worry, you're dressed just fine for it, though you'll need to refresh your make-up when we get there." She smiled.

There was a pause. Then, "Kara's been helping you become a woman. You've come a long way in just a couple of hours. She's fixed your figure so it looks authentic because it is. And it feels good too I bet."

"Yes," I said, remembering how it had felt when Kara touched my new nipple. Then also while I'd been kneeling down with my face in someone's lap and his hands were on my nipples. Oh, God, what ecstasy! What was that?

"Do you remember anything afterward? After she fixed your figure?"

I looked at her.

"Was there a man?"

It was blurred, but yes, there was! He was sitting there, and I was kneeling and looking up at his face. My face was in his lap, looking up.

"Yes," I said. "There was!" It seemed miraculous. Of course! How could I have forgotten?

"Yes, Tim. Quite a man, too. You like him?"

Another memory returned. A feeling!

"I had him in my mouth!" I said, amazed.

"Yes, you did, and you loved it. What's your best memory of it?"

"Big. Thick. And slippery on my lips. So velvety smooth."

"Yes," she said gently. "Men's cocks are like that. That's why they're so nice."

"Slick and salty when he squirted."

"Yes, they do taste that way. Now stop and think, take your time. What did you do while he was in your mouth? What do we call what you did?"

I was stymied. For a moment. But the fog in my mind was blowing away more rapidly now, and I could see things more clearly. I remembered what I'd done.

"Sucking. Cocksucking. I sucked his cock! That's what I did!" I said triumphantly. Then heard what I'd just said, and realized what it meant!

"Yes, honey, you did. You're now a cocksucker. Men who suck cocks are not always well-respected, but women suck cocks all the time and are always appreciated. You were appreciated. So that's what you must be. A woman."

"Yes." That was a comforting thought. So I wasn't gay after all! I'd just known it! I remembered telling Joanie that earlier this afternoon! I'd been a woman when I'd sucked that cock! That was why I did it.

"And you have breasts now too. Just like all other women. Did he touch them?"

I remembered. Rapture! "Yes. He did something with them. It felt wonderful. I came in my panties."

"Yes, when I came in you were kneeling astride his lap with his cock deep in your ass and holding his head and mouth gently to your breasts while he caressed them and sucked on your nipples. And your bottom was bobbing up and down on his cock ever so gently, slowly, swallowing it and releasing it. You looked so beautiful! So blissful! So perfectly, happily feminine. Do you remember now?"

"Yes," I said, because suddenly I did. It all came back now. I'd sucked a man's cock, and then he'd anchored me onto his lap by pushing it deep into my rear, and then he'd sucked my exposed nipples as they'd poked out of the opening in each cup of that stiff bra I had to wear for support. It had felt heavenly underneath, and unspeakably, utterly glorious above! I'd felt so tender toward him!"

"Kara enhanced your breasts for you. So you'd feel like more of a woman. She injected a new hormonal collagen to swell them up and bring the nipples forward, to give a man's mouth something to hold, so you can suckle a man as only a woman can. Yes, that was our plan. You'd suck him and then he'd suck you. Wasn't it divine? You were embracing Tim's head so passionately just before he brought you off! You should have seen yourself, your head thrown way back, eyes shut, moaning out loud in the deepest ecstasy, living in another world altogether, one far better than this one. Do you remember any of it now?"

I remembered all of it now, and said so.

"Then I have to congratulate you, honey. Now you know something of what you've been missing while you've been dressing up in secret and pretending to be a woman, hiding all alone inside the house, afraid to go out and actually be a woman. Now you've taken several giant steps toward knowing what it is you really want to be. I mean knowing, not just playing at it, too timid ever to really find out. Now you know a few things about feminine joy. You're more like one of us. As Kara said, you can always go ahead or you can go back, your choice. But now at least it's a real choice. It isn't just clinging to what you know because you're afraid of what you don't know.

She was right. I had to think about this. This morning I was a man and an occasional crossdresser. Now there was no getting around it, I was a kind of probationary woman, a cocksucker with incredible tits and a woman's name and a wife who was urging me to be honest with myself about what I truly wanted. And I actually felt good about it!

"Was I fucked?" I asked her timidly. "He had his cock in me. Did he fuck me?"

"If you feel you've been fucked, then you were," she answered cryptically. "If not, that's something else to look forward to." Then she added, "If you mean, did he cum in you, the answer is no, not yet. In that sense you're still a virgin."

We pulled into the Bamboo Club drive, and the valet parking attendant held open Joan's door, then mine.

"First stop the ladies' room," Joan said. "You need to fix your lipstick, girl! It all rubbed off on Tim's prick, did you know that? So there's another lesson to remember. Every time you give head, no exceptions, re-do your lips. Swallow, lick the cum off, then re-do them. Because you want to keep them attractive. What if you should meet someone you know? You wouldn't want to disgrace yourself!"

It felt so strange, hearing Joan address me as '"girl". Rather marvelous. I loved it. And it was a thrill, walking into the restaurant confident that no one would think me a man, waiting for the hostess to seat me and then sitting down delicately, skirt tight, rump precise, just as I'd so-often practiced at home. And ordering in a breathy voice. And taking small bites. And actually chatting away with Joan as if I really were her girlfriend or her sister. I decided that I loved it! By now the effects of that tranquilizer Kara had given me had worn off altogether, and my mind was perfectly clear. I did love it! I felt so very much like a woman! I wanted to do this with Joanie much more often!

Then as we loitered over coffee came an altogether new surprise. A rather handsome, tastefully-dressed man came to our table and leaned over and kissed me affectionately on the cheek. "Lovely to see you again, Sherry," he murmured. "I never had a chance to thank you. So, thank you, sweet Sherry, from the very bottom of my heart. And from other places too." He smiled charmingly at me. Did I know him? I was astonished!

Then he turned to Joan and as she half-rose he kissed her firmly on the lips. And she kissed him back. Put her arm around his neck and drew him down and kissed him even closer. With deep affection! I was amazed!

"I can only stay a moment, Joanie," he told her. "I've left the car in the restaurant pick-up zone. Are you about ready? Have you told Sherry the rest of whatever she needs to know?

"Not yet, Tim," she said gently to him. Lovingly? "I'll do that now. You go on ahead, I'll only be a few more minutes."

He kissed her again, smiled fondly at me, and disappeared.

Joanie turned toward me. "That was Tim," she said. "Didn't you recognize him?"

"No," I said. "You mean the man I was ... who ... earlier today? At Kara's?"

"You were rather intimate with him earlier today. One would have thought ...."

"Joanie, don't joke. I was zonked out of my mind earlier today. And the only parts I saw of that man were the back of his head and the pole between his legs."

"Well, that was the man. Tim. Doesn't he seem nice?"

"Yes, very," I said. And waited. There were things she had to tell me.

And she did.

"Sherry," Joan began. "This is a day for confessions. You've revealed your bi-gendered desires to me, and told me you're a transvestite, at least a transvestite, and now we both wonder if you're something a little more than that too, don't we?"

Fair enough. I nodded.

"Well, I have a confession to make too. I didn't just find your women's clothes only today. I found them weeks ago. Maybe a couple of months ago. It was then that the discovery devastated me, not today. It was then that I decided you were having an affair with some woman I didn't know, that you were inviting her to our house in my absence, into our bed! That you'd shamelessly betrayed me and our marriage vows! I was desperate!"

"Weeks ago?" I repeated, stunned, trying to work through the implications and unable to think at all. "Maybe months?"

"Yes. I didn't know what to do about it. Who could I talk to? Kara warned me not to leap to conclusions, they could be anyone's clothes, even yours. But I told her that was impossible, that you'd have told me if you had any tendencies in that direction, any little kinks in your sexuality that needed ironing out. I was sure of it. Because we had no secrets from each other."

And Joan stared at me meaningfully. And I stared back at her mournfully, guilt rising, aware of her implicit rebuke.

"The more I thought about it, the more furious I got. I couldn't stay civil with you. We argued over everything, the most trivial things, remember?"

I nodded. I remembered.

"I decided finally that the only way I could even things out between us, get over my sense of injury, was to take a no fault divorce from my obligation to be faithful to you. To even the score. To start an affair of my own. That wasn't difficult. There was this very attractive man in my office, Tim, a confirmed bachelor, by reputation and preference bisexual, a sexual athlete with women or men alike. Tim will take on anyone. You already know that. So he seemed safe enough, and not likely to threaten my marriage to you by getting serious. You've just met him again, now for the second time."

She paused to let all that sink in. Then she proceeded.

"Sherry, my husband Jerry would never understand this, but you're a woman, you will. Tim and I have been seeing each other for weeks now. Often. Three, four, five times a week. Fucking each other silly! I don't love him, I still love the man I married. But Tim is marvelous, between your legs, humping your backside, anywhere! Incredible! I can't get enough of him."

She nodded to me to underline the seriousness of what she was saying. I nodded back that I understood, though I now felt twisted by jealousy. I'd felt that passionate about her when we were first married. I tried to recall anything at all about what made Tim so attractive. He was a decent enough man I supposed. His cock was long and smooth and thick. His mouth had felt glorious while wrapped around my protruding nipple and he was sucking and tonguing me. Thinking about these things, I could understand. She was fucking Tim and it felt nice, nothing personal.

She went on. "It was all going to come to a head when you got back from your trip next week. Monday or Tuesday you were due back, remember? Then I'd tell you I knew all about your ... woman, your whore, I'd tell you that I'd had enough, that I was thinking of leaving you, that I'd just gone away to a resort hotel with Tim for the weekend to get some of my own back, and we'd just had a marvelous time. I'd tell you that you could live with that idea or not as you chose."

I nodded, appalled.

"Because that's what Tim and I are planning to do. That's what I was preparing when you got home earlier today. I'd spread all your women's clothes around so if you got home when I was still away with Tim, or when I was at the office on Monday, or whenever, you couldn't deny what they were and what they meant and that I knew. I'd spread them around, and I was crying about the end of our marriage. And that's when you arrived home unexpectedly."

She paused again, and swallowed. I felt terrible. Then she said in a regretful, plaintive tone. "Who knew that you were the whore? Who'd have suspected? You never told me!" No, I was mistaken. Her tone wasn't regretful but accusing. Resentful.

So I'd more or less forced her into an adulterous affair by my failure to confess to her my odd, shameful, compulsive desire to cross-dress. Retribution. In effect, she'd been sleeping with Tim because I'd been unfaithful to her, somehow. As she understood it.

So I had to forgive her. Divorce under these circumstances would have been absurd. I could forgive her, I realized. I had to.

"Joan," I said. "You talk as if you were still going away with him. But you know now I've been faithful to you all along! So shouldn't you cancel that plan? It's all been a terrible misunderstanding, but please, can't we pick up and resume with what we have now that we both know the truth?"

There came a very long pause. The waiter came by to offer more coffee. I remembered that Tim was waiting uneasily for her outside in the parking area, and that she knew it. So I felt vastly relieved when she signalled that she'd like to have her cup refilled. She intended to stay, at least for a little while longer.

That's why her next words were all the more shocking. "I could stay with you now, Sherry. And I do intend to pick up and resume with you after this weekend. That's why I'm so terribly sorry to have to tell you this. Sherry, I don't want to stay with you this weekend. Or any other weekend when there's some buff guy asking me to spend it with him. We won't ever have the same relationship again, you and I. Not since you finally confessed to me what you are and what you do."

She then actually leaned across the table and took my hands in hers! Both of them!

"Understand me, sweet girl, I love you and I want to bear your children and all, when we decide to do it, and you're a marvelous companion, the one person I chose to live with for life and I mean to live with for life. But look at you now! You aren't the man I married. Maybe you never were. You're more a woman than a man. There IS another woman in your life, your alternative self, and I don't think she should be suppressed any longer. I think she should be sustained, encouraged, made a regular part of your life. And I want to make sure she is. I want to help her in every way I can. I've been helping, you can't begin to guess how many ways. But I also need a man in my life who's all man, not one or the other depending. I realized that when I called Tim this afternoon, after you confessed yourself to me, and he offered to help you feel like a woman, he agreed to be there when you came down from Kara's examination room with your proud new tits blazoned across your chest, ready to suck your very first cock and suckle your very first lover. And he was there for you. For us. I told him he should meet us here so I could see the two of you together, so I could be quite sure of myself when I went off with him. As I am. Honey, I'm going with Tim in a few more minutes and I won't be home until late Sunday night. Please try to understand and be accepting, just as I am of you. I'm leaving you our car. Your keys are in your purse, along with your tampons and condoms. Use them all as you will, and when you get home, please, do feel free to look through my closet and see which of my dresses you'd like to share. There's nothing like a new dress to cheer a girl up when she's feeling alone or left out. All of mine are all yours now if you want them. Isn't that the offer you've always dreamed of? Oh, we're going to have such fun, now that I know all about you, and you know so much more about yourself! You'll see! You'll love it, honey!"

And she stood up, ready to leave me and join Tim.

"Joanie!" I cried out. I was despairing. Something in my voice reached her, and she sat down again and again took my hands in hers.

"Sweetheart! Sweetheart! You aren't losing me, that won't ever happen, I just told you that! Tim isn't your rival! He's our lover! He has been for some time! Remember that night a few weeks ago when you were kissing me down below and found I was sopping wet, not just moist as usual? And you told me I tasted delicious? That wasn't me, it was Tim! Tim! The same man you sucked off a few hours ago, remember? Didn't the flavor seem familiar? He isn't mine, baby, he's ours!"

I gripped her hands, trying to suppress sobs. She was right, but something seemed terribly wrong, somehow.

"Please, understand this!" Joan went on. "Imagine how shocked I was this afternoon to find you haven't been unfaithful, that all those clothes in our closet were yours! That I've been the unfaithful partner in our marriage, not you! Well, I had to make it up to you! And I think I have. I told Tim, and he agreed to help me help you discover what you really are, and now you're well on your way to fulfilling that whole range of desires, to feeling like a woman, all with my complete permission. Isn't that what you didn't dare ask for previously?"

She paused. I nodded. She was right. I had wanted it, and now I had it. But at what a cost!

"And remember, you've been unfaithful to me with Tim too, now. You've pleasured him, and let him pleasure you. He's our lover, not just mine but yours too. Even more, he thinks you're cute, and he loved the way you sucked his cock, and he wants to help you complete your womanhood by using your rear as a pussy. He really does want to be the first man to cum inside you there. Sherry, I can assure you, he'll feel marvelous when he's inside you, gentle yet firm and ... well you'll see. He promises it will be a ravishing evening you'll never forget."

I didn't know why, but I had mixed feelings about that. I wanted it yet I didn't. Joan explained it on her next sentence. She seemed to know more about me than I did.

"You said you weren't gay, and I believe you, but that was the man in you talking. The woman in you isn't gay either, I bet. I bet she wants a man. Sherry, when Tim and I get back I'll have him call you, and before you know it there'll be a lovely, long, thick, meaty prick moving in and out of you, maybe in the throes of passion slamming in and out of you with your buttocks cushioning the blows. As a girl's rear should."

She stood up. "Honey, Tim's waiting. You go home, and I'll join you when I can. Meanwhile, do try on whatever I have in my closet that might fit you. Enjoy them. You're welcome to any or all. Be sure especially to try on my gray suit, it was made for a figure like yours. It impresses all of my clients—why not yours too?"

And she was gone. I sat there a moment.

When I hailed the waiter to pay the bill, I found that Tim had already covered it. Payment to me for the use of my wife? The use of my mouth and tits? Despite Joan's reassurances, I began to feel bitter. This morning I'd been merely a married man and a secret cross-dresser. Now I was a cuckold whose wife was setting him up to live as a woman with a woman's separate sex life. Did I want to? Live as a woman all the time? The prospect was exciting, but I had mixed feelings about it. Especially about the sex part. Men simply didn't look attractive to me! Women looked attractive!

I suddenly felt alone and vulnerable, and realized that I was a man wearing a dress and lipstick out in public for the first time by himself. No, I had to feel I was a woman! Very carefully I rose, left the restaurant, retrieved our car, and despite my high heels I managed to drive home.

Once there it was easier, more familiar. I found I was reluctant to remove my make-up and change back into men's gear. Not surprisingly. So I slowly picked up all my women's clothing strewn all over the floor and the bed, and I hung them away carefully in my closet, and placed the smaller items neatly folded into a drawer in my own bureau. No need to hide them any longer. They were now an acceptable feature of my life with Joan, for the indefinite future. That was a plus, whatever the minuses. I grew more and more eager to examine Joan's closet, now that I had her permission to wear anything in it. But I delayed. It was a lot like opening a box of candy, or a treasure chest—the anticipation was delicious, and made me light-headed. Finally, I allowed myself.

Her gray suit first, as she'd recommended—my slip would do for it as it had for my dress, and it didn't require a blouse. The skirt was mid-thigh yet somehow proper, a sexy businesswoman's, and the jacket was form-fit, nipped in the waist, very fetching. My plump new breasts filled it out above, and the nubbins of my enlarged nipples were decorously covered by its broad lapels. It felt ... good to be wearing it. Cute yet efficient. Cheery. I loved it, it was me! I decided to add a gold pendant for effect.

Then while raising my arms to attach the chain behind my neck, I heard and felt a crinkle from the jacket's inner pocket. It turned out to be a stiff, folded piece of paper, a receipt for an hotel room from some overnight business trip Joan must have taken ...let's see ... eight months ago. Joan did sometimes travel on company business, and I supposed she'd forgotten to turn this bill in for reimbursement. Yet strangely, on the back I found a hand-written note—"The best ever, Joanie! Again in two weeks? This time all night? Plead out-of-town business or something, and call me!" A phone number followed.

Odd. I looked again. The receipted bill was from the Sheraton Regal, one of our better downtown hotels. And the phone number was also local. On a whim, I went to the family computer to use the reverse phone book and I found that the number belonged to a William Carr, one of the Vice-Presidents in Joanie's firm.

Was this something I should question Joan about? It did look like an assignation. It hardly looked like anything else. It told me that eight months ago Joan had spent time in a downtown hotel with a business associate, and more than once. This was long before she'd found my clothes, decided that I'd been unfaithful, and decided to treat me accordingly. By a half-year or more. What was this?

I opened her e-mail file for eight months ago to look for clues, especially to see if she'd gone out of town on business during that week or had only seemed to go out of town. But I was distracted almost at once by two folders, one called "Tim Work" and the other "Tim, Mmmm!" I opened "Tim, Mmmm!" and the bottom fell out of my life.

The e-mails were all recent, all from the last few months. There were weeks of short messages like "Thursday lunch? Plan on two hours, I'll make the reservation, and they'll seem like two minutes!" from Tim, and "That was great, lover! I still feel stretched out and deeply, deeply satisfied!" from Joan. Not surprising in itself, Joan had already told me she'd begun an affair with Tim back then, rather proudly at that. But just last week the messages grew longer.

 

 

From: Tim

 

Baby doll, we must get together for the whole coming weekend! There's this beautiful vacation resort called Mountainview Lodge a few hours from here where we can make love non-stop, on foam and water-beds, saunas and hot tubs, wherever. I'm dying to go galloping with you, me mounted on the horse and you facing me mounted astride my lap—you'll love it, having two strong animals between your thighs at the same time, and my meat galloping inside you! And every night I'll lick cream out of your pussy until my tummy bursts! Can't you ditch that faggot husband of yours for two, maybe three days? Lock him in a closet or something? That's where he spends his days anyhow whenever you're not in the house, from what you tell me."

From: Joan

 

The coast is clear, baby! He'll be away on business this week through early next week. The whole weekend's ours! Come over here Thursday and spend the night. Warm up his side of the bed for me, so I'll know what someone who's all man feels like in that space for once. Then Friday we'll leave from my place to go to this resort of yours. And then, and then ...!"

From: Tim

 

In your house, in your bed? Sweetie, I love it, but isn't that a little risky? I mean, you once told me he comes home early sometimes. You don't want to force any of this into the open yet, do you?"

From: Joan

 

Why not? Jerry and I each have our secret lives as women. If he finds out that I know about his and he feels embarrassed, I'll reward him. Kara has this great new breast augmentation procedure, women love the way their nipples feel afterward, and their men love it too because their women go into outer space whenever they're touched. I've thought of getting it for me. But I think first for Jerry? I can tell from all those bras stashed in the closet that he's hooked on having boobs. I'll get him some delicious real ones, and then he can feel free to look like a woman for life, not just when I'm not looking. And to really feel like one! Then once he's committed I can feel free to take on any men anywhere whenever I feel like it, not just when he doesn't know. And meanwhile I can feel quite sure of him. Because I do want to keep him. I'm sure no man with breasts will ever go wandering into other women's beds to try to even the score with wives who wander into other men's beds.

You know, maybe it's time to play the transvestite card? Let him know I know? I do love him, even though he isn't much of a man. I do want to spend my life with him, and I want him to be happy. Maybe he'd be happier if he went all the way as a woman? Maybe I should give him just a little push in that direction, and see if he tumbles?

I tell you what, Tim. If he comes back early, that'll be when. He's always noisy, coming into the house, especially with luggage, so if it's while we're still there we'll have plenty of warning. You can duck out the back, and then I'll put him on the defensive. I'll scatter his dresses and panties around and tell him I think they're another woman's. It's a ridiculous idea, another woman leaving a whole wardrobe packed up in a married man's house, but I know the sweet dear, he'll never realize it, he'll get all flustered and over-eager to prove to me that they're his. Then when he's 'fessed up and knows that I know he's a crossdresser, I'll get him all dressed up and then charm him into Kara's clinic and get him all boobed up. And that'll be that. I'll break it to him by degrees that you and I have been together as lovers for a long time, and then later on that there were others before you. And that there will be others after you. Maybe he'll accept that as inevitable? I'll can always offer to share my whole wardrobe with him, accept him as he is completely, maybe that'll help persuade him to accept me the way I am? I can offer to share my lovers too. How about you for openers? [giggle]"

From: Tim

 

He's your husband, and it's your marriage, honey. Maybe I can help. Should I make some moves on him myself, offer to complete whatever part of him thinks he's a woman who needs a man? Would he be willing to suck my cock do you think? Could he do it better than you do it? I wouldn't mind setting up a competition between you two. ;-)

From: Joan

 

How sweet of you to offer. We'll see. You may be right though. Give him a taste of your cock first. It's such a marvelous cock, how can anyone resist it? Then when he's a confirmed cocksucker and no man at all it'll be easier to keep him that way.

I do want to keep him away from women. Especially available women like the ones who hang out at lesbian pickup bars like "Bosom Buddies," the kind who just love effeminate men and are eager to help them feel like women, who want to turn them into women and welcome them into their sisterhood, and so on. You know, those sex bars where every drink is a hormone cocktail, where the women use the men up and then send them home feminized to their wives. He'd love to bed down with a woman like that, especially once she plays with those new nipples of his. I'm no competition that way, I'd be afraid I'd lose him. You're right, it's better for us to break him into being gay. Let him learn to enjoy sucking on you, then on other guys, let's keep him too busy servicing men to think about women.

From: Tim

 

Sounds like a plan. If he comes home early this week, fine. If not, we'll nail him some other time. Get the scenario set up for fast triggering. Joanie sweetheart, do you realize that now we can spend day after day in that bed of yours until he finally tumbles to what's going down? Then very likely the three of us will then live happily ever after in that same bed!

So, see you Thursday night at your place. I can hardly wait. Wait for me in that ice-blue nightgown I love. And full make-up, that turns me on like nothing else. We'll fuck all night, and then Friday afternoon we'll drive to the Mountainview Lodge. I'll make the reservations.

From Joan:

You're on! The weekend's on regardless!

 

 

I turned off the computer, appalled, and for the first time really angry! Furious! Outraged! What deceit! I'd been set up! From the beginning! That's why I found her in her nightgown when I came home, her eye make-up smudged and the back door open! She wasn't sobbing on the bed, she was fucking! She was well meaning and all, but this proved it, she wanted it all her way! Will this be my life if I stay with her? Borrowing her dresses and sucking her lovers' cocks hard and slick enough to enter her, over and over?

I tore off her gray suit and threw it on the floor, and marched up and down the room in my slip, fuming, beside myself with indignation! Finally I sat down on the bed and tried to think more rationally about all this, what was to be done. Should I strip down all the way and put on my men's clothes and walk out on her? Kara had warned me not to take off the bra for another day or two, not until the implants set. I might end up disfigured.

At least I was coming out of this with tits, that's something, I heard myself thinking. And they're the kind that feel great! Experimentally I touched my nipple tips. OH GOD! I was gone! It was glorious! I lay back on the bed and then for maybe a half-hour I played with myself in an enchanted daydream, in sheer delight, tickling and caressing and kneading those swollen nubs until I realized that I'd come twice and had better change my panties. Yes, they were decidedly a plus. I'd never give them up, never!

But didn't they require women's clothes to fit? At least blouses? I began going through Joan's wardrobe more systematically, trying on dresses and blouses and silken shirts, all sorts of marvelous goodies, looking for outfits that flattered my new bust, until my sense of betrayal had gradually faded out altogether. No more hiding out, I realized. If I stay here Joan and I can be girlfriends as well as husband and wife. Was I willing to pay that price?

Think of the rewards. Joan had such gorgeous clothes! And think of the shopping, the dining out, all the girl-things we could do together.

I did owe her. She'd deceived me, but she has enlarged my world as a woman, I was thinking. I was no longer afraid to go out and enjoy myself as only a woman can. Though not with men. Not with just any men, anyhow. With other women, yes! And she'd unwittingly told me what kinds of women in those e-mails, and where to find them!

I carefully replaced that hotel invoice in the gray suit and hung it back in the closet. Joan would never know I'd found out about her scheming, her duplicity. But I knew about it, so I felt free to do anything, with or without her knowledge or approval. Beginning tonight! Determinedly I took down a sleek crimson beaded evening dress with a slit most of the way to my waist, and some long, long net stockings, and a garter belt, and I found some high, high heels that miraculously fit me perfectly. What was the name of that place she'd mentioned where lesbian women love to meet men just like me? Women who love men who love being women? Well, since she was off with a man, I'd go off with a woman with a clear conscience! I picked up my purse and paused at the hall phone book to look up the address of "Bosom Buddies." Then I went out the door, my heels clicking as I made my way back to my car, not even once looking back.

 

Epilogue

She'd never asked, but a few months later, when Joanie and I were both getting dressed to go out, I finally told her everything that happened that night after she'd gone off with Tim and I'd left the restaurant. How I'd discovered the evidence of her betrayal in the gray suit jacket, and then encountered her treacherous e-mail files, that scheme she'd concocted with Tim to get me to confess my crossdressing and then to push me further. How I'd gone to "Bosom Buddies" feeling outrageously deceived and determined to get even. How I'd met this gorgeous babe there named Holly, and ... well, there seemed no reason to keep any of that night a secret from her any longer. So I told Joan how I'd danced with Holly as if a woman with another woman, and how I'd felt this intense urge to sleep with her, to confirm what little manhood remained in me by fucking her. How, incredibly, she'd confessed that she felt the same way about me.

And how, when we'd gotten to her place and were naked with each other, I found that she meant exactly what she'd said—that she was not a woman after all but a man like me, also with breasts, though a man who'd been on female hormones for so long that her figure was swelled out into gorgeous curves! How I'd confirmed my masculinity by fucking her, and then she'd confirmed my femininity by fucking me! How our passion had skyrocketed and exploded and showered us with glorious sparks, and then glowed for weeks. How magnificent it had all been. How we still greeted each other with love and gratitude and affection whenever we saw each other, even though we'd both eventually gone on to other things and other people.

Joanie listened closely as she finished with her hair and sat down to put on the rest of her make-up, but then surprised me. She told me she already knew all those things. That she knew them better in some ways than I did. And she told me how she knew.

"Sweetie," she said as she stared intently into her mirror, perfecting her eye make-up while I listened. "Do you mean to say that in all this time you still haven't worked it out? No, I suppose you've never bothered, you've never felt you needed to. What's past is past, and bygones are all bygones, and so forth. That's very sensible, and that's probably what I love about you."

She turned toward me and put up her face to be kissed, and I did. I loved her too. "Careful, lipstick," she said, needlessly but appreciatively.

"Well, let me tell you what really happened as I know it. Knew it while it was happening, in fact. We really have no reason not to tell each other everything, not any longer. And I do think you'll find it quite amusing, in a way!"

And she did, and it was. She was a wonderful mimic, and as we finished getting ready to go out she entertained me by reproducing the dialogue practically word for word. She seemed to remember every detail. When I asked her how come, she seemed surprised that I needed to be told. "Sweetheart!" she said. "That was the most important night of our lives! Of our whole relationship! That was the night we finally got our marriage onto its present course, this time in perfect honesty and harmony, neither of us with anything to hide and with no reason to want to! In a way, that night was our new beginning, and even though we were apart and enjoying other sex partners it was a kind of second honeymoon!"

It turned out I hadn't a clue.

"You see, honey, nothing that happened that night was accidental. You took down that gray suit as I'd asked you to do, and you found that invoice in my gray suit just where I left it, just as I'd hoped. You found my e-mail correspondence with Tim just as I'd hoped too—it was outside my password protection, didn't that even occur to you? And I'd copied those e-mails to so many other places in that computer that I still keep stumbling into them! You couldn't fail to see them! And if you hadn't, there were other clues and hints about my extramural sex life and my schemes planted all over the house—I still keep stumbling onto them too."

"Because those e-mails didn't tell the whole story. They were designed to arouse your male jealousy and carry you that last distance into what you are now. All voluntarily, all because you wanted to! None of it my doing! When you said you weren't gay, I believed you. I knew it! You aren't! You sucked on Tim and accepted his cock into your butt and his mouth on your tits at Kara's only because you were bombed out of your mind and scarcely knew what was happening, of course I knew that. The man in you is straight, and he's still there down under, and he still likes women. But meanwhile the woman in you still isn't sure what she is, and does want to be treated like a woman. That's probably been true all your life, though you've probably known only a small part of it, only the desire to look feminine in your mirror."

"It was Tim who came up with the solution, that before we try to intimidate or cajole you, pretending you love men, before we get the man in you out of the way in order to satisfy the woman in you, we should first try a halfway arrangement. Find you someone you think is a woman you can fuck without my worrying that she'll take you from me, someone you can fuck to even your score with me, to make up for the injury my ... little adventures did to your male ego. Tim suggested we send you to "Bosom Buddies," which isn't a gay bar or a lesbian bar either, but a specialized bar for transsexuals, where there are plenty of lovely men on the make, all well hung and always looking for new mouths to feed."

That was true. I'd found that out. But I'd never connected that fact with Joan's schemes, or the way I'd first heard of "Bosom Buddies."

"I realized right away that was the answer! That you were such an innocent that once you were there you'd be sure you'd picked up a genuine lesbian woman or some woman trans-hag, that you'd make moves on her until it was too late to back away when it turned out she was a man. Because by then you'd have fucked and been fucked as both a man and as a woman, and you'd have been satisfied both times. And would want more. Because that's what you are, part and part, some of each."

"We left nothing to chance. If you hadn't gone to "Bosom Buddies" on your own, we'd arranged for a mysterious limo to stop at the house to bring you there. But you did go on your own."

"Let me tell you how I knew. We were still driving to that resort of Tim's, Mountainview Lodge, when his cell phone rang. I took the call. It was Jamie at "Bosom Buddies," who said, 'Darling you were so right, I simply don't know how you do it, you're just wonderful. I have amazing news. Yes! He just came in, wearing the most scrumptious evening gown! That red beaded long-line with the gathered bust, you remember how it exaggerates your breasts so radically you decided you didn't care for it? And a slit practically to the armpit? Well, on his figure it's divine! And just as you'd instructed her, Holly came up to him right away, the dear girl—I'd told her to watch out for him—and they're dancing together right now. Yes, he still may well think Holly's a real girl, though the way they're grinding their crotches against each other I don't see how, they both must have enormous boners. Holly's is enormous, that I know personally.'

'So it's all working out. Holly'll take him home and keep him there until Sunday night, and you can be home before him and then when he gets home play whatever indignation game you choose. In any event you'll be free and clear of guilt for your own little infidelities, and free to have more if you like, because your husband will be doing the same, leading a richer and certainly a more honest life with himself and with you. So you'll both have your cake and eat it, won't you?'"

"Well, I answered, 'Yes, Jamie, I'm glad to know this, thank you for everything. I'm sure he'll want to eat some of your cake too when Holly's finished with him. He did say he likes the smooth feel of a cock sliding between his lips. I'd like that to get to be a regular thing for him whenever I'm somewhere else.'"

"'Oh, my dear, when you next see him, he'll love that smooth feel in all his other places too, if I know Holly. Not just between his lips. Don't give it another thought!'"

Joan now looked at me, turning away from her make-up table at last, her face as perfect as always when she was going out, and perfectly composed. I was sitting and listening, fascinated. "Well," she said, "I clicked off, and Tim looked at me, still driving, and he asked, 'All still according to plan?'"

"'Yes,' I told him. 'With a bonus. You're now officially off the hook as his reserve cock. We have other more fitting arrangements now. But thank you for filling in at Kara's when and where I needed you.'"

"Well, Tim grinned as he turned the car into the Mountainview Lodge Resort's driveway. 'You're feeling grateful that my cock filled in when and where you needed me?' he asked, then added, 'Joanie, the weekend's only begun!'"

"That's what he said, sweetheart," Joanie concluded. "And that's what he did. Like many men before and since."

I had nothing to say.

Joanie looked at me. "That's what happened, honey. That's the truth, every last word of it. You didn't know how thoroughly you'd been set up? Set up to think you'd learned that you'd been set up? That I'd hired Holly to complete your feminizing and keep you busy while Tim and I were locked in each other's arms and legs? That she did it so successfully that when Tim and I got back, instead of your raging at me for all my betrayals and then storming out toward the divorce courts with fistfuls of computer printouts, ready to impoverish me for life, all that happened was you smiled and welcomed me home and then asked me for the name of my hairdresser? You remember? You'd had your ass filled with Holly's cock from Friday night to Sunday afternoon, and you'd filled her ass whenever her cock needed to recover, and it still didn't seem like enough? She'd caressed and stroked and sucked your breasts so delicately that you'd gone into a trance—she told me that at one point she'd worried whether you'd passed out. Then I remember, you wanted to look as pretty as you could for her that next weekend. And the one after that. Your womanly feelings bloomed beautifully, and your residual manly needs were meanwhile adequately tended. What few there were left. It was perfect. Remember?"

I remembered. I smiled to let Joanie know I remembered.

"I must say you looked gorgeous that next weekend with Holly. A knockout! Though how could you not, good heavens, you went into that beauty salon at dawn and you didn't emerge until dusk! I didn't dare let Tim near you! Then during the next week as I recall you told your clients all about your change of gender and yet you didn't lose a single one of them—I've never really asked you what little extra somethings you promised to do for them. Nothing I wouldn't do, I'm sure. And you know something else? Holly never did bill me, not even for that first weekend you spent with her. Did you know that? You were that satisfying to be with! So in effect you completed your journey into womanhood for free! With proud tits held high and high honors also!"

She grinned broadly at me, and just then a car horn sounded outside. "That's Kevin this week," she said, picking up her purse. "I shouldn't be home too late, honey, but if you get home before me, don't wait up." And as she headed for the door I heard a second horn sound, then sound again. And again.

Jamie, I told myself. Holly's boss at 'Bosom Buddies.' On time, but disturbing the neighbors as usual. When will she ever learn that she isn't a man any more, probably never has been, that she needs to act more ladylike, more discreet, less brash whenever she calls for her dates? That she needs to behave more like me?

Then I picked up my own purse and followed Joanie out of the house.

 

End

© 2004 by Vickie Tern

  

  

  

*********************************************
© 2004 by Vickie Tern. All Rights Reserved. These documents (including, without limitation, all articles, text, images, logos, and compilation design) may be printed for personal use only. No portion of these documents may be stored electronically, distributed electronically, or otherwise made available without the express written consent of StorySite and the copyright holder.