A Place Of Her Own free porn video

This story depicts sexual activity of various sorts among consenting if sometimes also credulous and deceived adults. If you are not a consenting adult don't read it, no matter how credulous or deceived. It's not for you. Not yet. A Place of Her Own by Vickie Tern i. I left on a Sunday and came back the following Sunday. A full week, the longest we'd ever been apart, and the longest time I'd ever spent being a girl, looking and behaving and feeling feminine all the time. I was still enjoying the afterglow as I pulled into our garage and leaving my luggage in the trunk, entered the house directly through the garage. I had to remain invisible to the neighbors. It was still daylight, and I didn't want any of them to notice that my lovely upswept curls had survived last night's Farewell Ball. This morning they'd looked so sweet I didn't have the heart to comb them out, and I knew I'd be meeting no one who knew me, so I'd relented and flown back with them just as they were. Some other passengers on the plane had stared at me puzzled or amused or interested and then turned their attention elsewhere. A middle-aged woman had glowered as if I were somehow a threat to middle-aged women everywhere. But the flight attendant told me she wished her boyfriend had my courage, that before going into public places he always combed out the cute hairdos she sometimes styled for him, that mine looked darling. My heart melted! For the rest of the trip I couldn't smile at her gratefully enough whenever she handed me the airline's little packets of pretzels! Tricia was nowhere to be seen. A few years ago that would've seemed ominous, my beloved wife not coming forward to greet me when I came home from a long trip like this one. But not now. I preferred now. Now I went to cross dressers' conventions routinely, and that's how I wanted her to regard them. Like ordinary business trips, the kind we each need to take now and then, separations just long enough to renew our appreciation of each other. Long enough for us both to feel grateful that whatever the occasional stresses between us, we do still live together and share our lives. That we're married. Everything in the kitchen looked the same. The stove and the counters were spotless -- either the cleaning lady had just visited or else Tricia had eaten out a lot, probably near her office, working the late hours she always worked when I wasn't expected home. I didn't doubt that at this moment she was sequestered in our study or maybe even the room beyond the study, thinking through strategies and prepping court cases for the coming week as she did every weekend. I almost shouted out "Honey, I'm home!" to make sure she knew, then caught myself and grinned. How domesticated can you get? Of course she knew! She'd certainly heard the garage door grind and growl when I came in. That sound reverberated well past our study despite the walls lined with books and filing cabinets and the other bric a brac of our professional lives. Even into the closed room beyond where I dressed and worked and kept my personal stuff and led my fantasy life. Tricia had stopped calling it "your girly room" and now called it "our" girly room or else just "the reading room." I'd done it in pink and cream chiffon, with delicate hangings and pastel sketches and plump pillows on the overstuffed divan, with a French Provincial bureau to hold my things and a huge mirrored Vanity Table holding my other things. It was where I went to be a woman. She'd resented it as an indulgence at first, but now she liked it - - it had a distinct feminine feel where she could recover herself, she said, when she'd had to be especially brutal on behalf of a client. She no longer minded that I now spent most of my time there, dressed in frilly lingerie and peignoir, or a chic skirt and jacket, or sometimes only an old house dress. That's where I'd work on some commissioned project, or browse some transgender web site, or study my makeup in the mirror. Or fix my hairdo while thinking my way through some client's problems. Eventually she felt so comfortable in that room that she preferred it to any other in the house. We'd sit there together after dinner and do our different things like girlfriends, not like the snug married couple we were. If anyone looked in, and no one ever would, all they'd see there would be two women comfortable with each other, the tall one prim at her keyboard, more often than not dressed elaborately as if about to go out (though she never did), the short one dressed casually in tight jeans and a T-shirt, sprawled across the floor while scribbling notes in the margins of legal papers. I always looked like the proper lady of the house, and Trish more often than not like my cute younger sister pretending to do her homework. Of course Tricia did dress appropriately at work or when attending the social gatherings that were part of her work. Then she wore the expensive black dresses or power suits or beaded cocktail gowns she needed to maintain her position in the firm. I envied her that wardrobe, though I owned one or two dresses as elaborate and high-styled, because she could wear hers whenever she chose and I got to wear mine only when I was out-of-town at gender meetings. But Trish didn't really care about clothes. Immediately on arriving home she'd hop into skimpy shorts or sweat pants, leap onto the treadmill and stairmaster we kept in the room designated eventually for our baby, sweat off her day's furies and frustrations, pop into the shower, and then emerge smelling of soap, glowing, wearing no makeup at all, her soft, ripe curves barely contained by her jeans and T-shirts. Then she'd peer into my feminine "reading room," kiss me, ask how my day had gone, discuss dinner plans, and if she felt a little horny sit in my lap and begin to unbutton my blouse. Originally we'd both worked in town for the same large law firm, Trish doing litigation and me as an industrial specialist for patent and trademark strategies. Now as a private consultant I did the same thing at home, sending it out by phone, fax, or computer. I was an engineer at heart, not a lawyer, but I retained many of her firm's clients as my own and I found I could pick and choose among others. I was plenty busy. The firm moved heaven and earth to try to keep me, offering me double my salary, a key to the executive washroom, whatever it took. I had the technical skills needed to solve their clients' problems, and the human skills to persuade them to do it my way. Finally my wife told them to give it up, they'd never get me back by offering me money and privilege, she'd try to find some other way some day. Money and privilege didn't matter at all to me. What I wore mattered. Like many engineers I hated to wear corporate suits and ties, and at home I could dress as I pleased. What pleased me, ironically, was an even more demanding feminine dress code -- heels, skirts, my hair set just elaborately enough to show care, my make-up impeccable, tasteful jewelry, all of it. That's how I did my job, as my own woman in an office of my own devising. Then when Trish came home, most of the time I didn't feel like changing into pants and scrubbing my face for a trip to some restaurant. So mostly I cooked for the two of us. It was relaxing after a day of solving other people's intricate problems, and I liked doing traditional womanly things anyhow. More often than not, when Trish came down from her shower I'd already changed for the evening into something pretty and romantic for her, and sometimes I'd already set out the first course of an elaborate candlelight dinner for two. With wines for each course. I did love her, and I wanted her to love me as much. All of me. My devotion apparently had some effect -- she'd been uneasy about my transvestism at first, but as she accepted more of her own femininity she'd begun to accept mine, even to enjoy it. She'd begun to sit at my make-up table, face still fresh-scrubbed and rosy from exercise, and ask my advice about this or that eye liner or lipstick, subjects formerly beneath her notice. She'd never previously used make-up creatively or with flair, only to maintain propriety when dating in College or when attending formal evenings with clients arranged by her firm. Lawyers don't, she'd told me. Her kind didn't, anyhow. She kept what few cosmetics she needed in an upstairs medicine cabinet, and kept a mascara and lipstick in her purse, and that was it. Nothing more. She'd stroke them onto her face after breakfast as an afterthought before heading out the door. She didn't really need more. Her skin was clear and her eyes were huge and dark. To me she always looked gorgeous. But during the past few years fashion had decreed that more is better, and even styles for women lawyers had changed. Maybe because the country's feminism was maturing, women who'd felt they had to look masculine to assert themselves now felt they had to look feminine to assert themselves. Or, maybe it was that Trish was now a partner in her law firm and thought that as the only woman on the executive board she should look it, go all the way. I'd told her long ago that a confident woman dressed in high style and perfectly made up always had enormous intimidating power over men, an advantage in a litigator. She'd listened attentively and nodded, willing to test the notion. Which she then did, first on me and then on opposing counsel. It always worked. Her poised beauty reduced them to silence, and a flirtatious wiggle of her hips could then discompose them utterly. Maybe that was why she began to take the same care I did with her daily make-up. One morning after botching the blending of several shades of eye shadow she'd delighted me by asking for help. After that I helped her daily, and eventually I became the one who made up her face each morning, sometimes evenings too when she had late meetings to attend or clients to see. I loved enhancing her appearance as if it were my own. She began to tease me about such effeminate concerns, of course, once she'd gotten over her anxieties about them. In fact it was around then that she began to call me "Mr. Amy" as if I were some swish hairdresser, and she began to tell envious friends about this wonderful personal beautician she'd discovered, no, she'd never reveal who or where it was "she" worked. Soon I became simply "Amy," and she couldn't praise Amy highly enough. "Amy" was now what she called me casually whenever we were alone with each other, even when there was nothing especially feminine under discussion. I was never "Andy" to her any more. Even when we made love. "Oh, Amy, that was just wonderful!" she'd tell me with her last hug before turning over to go to sleep. She seemed to like my being a sort of girl when we made love. Oral sex was as enjoyable to her as genital sex, and when I became "Amy" to her she pressed my head down gently between her legs more and more often. I loved it all! In fact in recent months she'd begun in small ways to encourage my being "Amy." It never seemed to affect my performance in bed, her earliest fear when I began to dress up daily like a girl. Rather the reverse. She noticed that when I was dressed I was always gentler and more considerate, that "Amy" was more affectionate than Andy during foreplay and afterplay, more willing to serve as her lesbian lover. When I commented this she was amused, and said only "Oh? Now you're a lesbian too? You mean that cute little thing down there is a dildo? I should poke one into you some time!" As Amy I didn't feel compelled to penetrate her with my cute little thing, and some days when she was apparently sore down there from her cycle she felt grateful. Sometimes she would enter a trance as I licked her, and would grip my face to her crotch through two or three orgasms, stroking the back of my head and wriggling her tender slit and clit further into my mouth and tongue. "Lick me deeper, Amy!" she'd mutter gutturally in her ecstasy. And I often did, marveling at her pussy flavors as it became more and more wet and aroused, especially when it began to spasm juices into my mouth. When she was finally ready to sleep she'd gratefully kiss the tip of my nose, tasting herself there. "My sweet cumsucking Amy," she'd say. "Tell me how you love eating me." I surely did! Then sometimes I'd suckle her breasts daintily while she drifted, dozed, and made little contented sounds. I'd have become her hairdresser too if I'd known how. I'd have loved doing some new things with it. It was long and blonde and thick, and each day she'd swirl it high into a French Twist and then leave it that way for everything, business, formal dinners, even for the stairmaster. My hair was dark and straight and not even shoulder length, so there was less I could do with it. I'd play with curlers and a blow dryer now and then, but my need to look male when I went out anywhere precluded a commitment to anything other than a boyish bob with bangs I could brush off my forehead. I'd have loved to get a body perm and proper styling, and have my hair layered into large waves to frame my face. But no. We were in agreement that the real woman among us should look as gorgeous as nature and art allows whenever she leaves the house, and that the other woman should never leave the house at all. Not dressed or done up as a woman! So during the past half-year or so Trish had came to look increasingly gorgeous, and her morale and mine rose accordingly. As she took greater pride in her appearance she developed an odd respect for my skill at making us both look pretty where originally she'd been indifferent and sometimes scornful. She became less inclined to worry or resent that I doted on all things feminine. I adored her. Two or three years ago when I first told her I meant to attend a three-day crossdresser's convention in another State so I could live like a woman full time, Trish had been dismayed, anxious, deeply disturbed. It was as if I were going off with another woman. I suppose in a way I was. I explained to her that I wanted to learn more about my peculiar compulsion to look like a member of her sex, why it felt so satisfying and relentless. To try to understand why her otherwise reasonable Andy felt such joy when he was being Amy. Conference organizers always scheduled doctors and psychologists to discuss the latest theories of gender divergence, to reassure us that there were hundreds of thousands of us created by nature or nurture or both, all self-identified by the same instinctual processes despite all sorts of denials. We listened, now and then adjusting our skirts. There were always cosmetologists there too, to show us how even the craggiest male faces could be softened into illusory prettiness. After a few such meetings I'd pretty much learned everything these experts had to teach me. But I kept going to them, just to do it! To wake up each morning deciding which accessories went best with whatever I meant to wear to which occasion that day. To look as pretty as I could, all day every day. To smile gently at other women like me and at real women too, and always receive a smile in return. To chat with other women. To shop and stroll the streets of whatever the host city, blending into the female half of the population, where everyone who saw me could think that's what I was and where I belonged. At such times I could even believe it myself, blissfully. These days she merely nodded when I informed her I was going, then returned to her work. She knew that now and then I had to be seen by others. Most of the year I dressed only for my mirror and my own delight. But now and then I needed to feel ratified in the eyes of others, confirmed in my femininity by their vision of me. I spent as much time as I could in my special feminine room feeling dainty, pretty, and affectionate in ways men never dare. I loved the feel of nylon and silk on my thighs, and I appreciated my own good taste when choosing the textures, colors, designs, and styles of the ensembles I wore. I loved seeing a flash of bright red on my fingertips, and glimpses of myself reflected in the mirror as no way masculine, rather distinctly ladylike, even coquettish, desirable. I felt sweetly serene at such moments. I felt nice. A girl should always feel nice. Being called "Ma'am" by some sales clerk felt very nice indeed! But that was possible only when I was out of town. At home we both feared discovery. Dressing up had felt terrifyingly dangerous if also delightful ever since my early adolescence. From the moment I came aware that they were different, I'd helplessly envied girls their grace, their delicacy, their charm, their freedom to be gentle yet enthusiastic, their breasts and figures and faces, the displays of decoration they allowed their faces, bodies, and clothes. Their ...femininity. I still remember that day in high school when with my heart pounding and my hands shaking I'd tried on a bra I'd found while sneaking through a girls' locker room. The sensations were so powerful I was overwhelmed, and nearly fainted. I stole the bra and during the next few years I wore it out. Then when I confessed this to a girlfriend at College she promptly dressed me up completely as a girl for a Halloween Dance. I was terrified but enraptured, beside myself. Unaccountably I felt an incredible joy, as if I had just been liberated. I thought I was so very beautiful! In fact she made me into so convincing a girl that no one believed I was wearing a costume. By the time the evening ended she'd persuaded herself as well, explained to everyone that my secret desire was to become the girl I seemed to be, and had gone off with a basketball player whose manhood was up front and unquestionable. I never forgot that humiliation, and neither did anyone else. I became a figure of jest. Only after I'd graduated and met Trish did any woman take my manhood seriously. Even I doubted it for a time, because that Halloween night addicted me. I found I adored the feel of lingerie and the taste of lipstick. I acted out my girlhood in secret whenever I could, always fearful and mortified, desperately afraid of discovery, yet at the same time blissful. Yet no matter how often I dressed I was always apprehensive, ashamed of the smirking, of the fingers pointed at any man who could sink so low as to wish to look like a woman. Any unmanned man! When Trish and I became engaged I confessed my vice to her. She was troubled at first, and demanded to see me dressed. She saw then that I was not grotesque but passable, and that I wasn't camping or mocking womanliness but admiring it. And she saw how important it was to me. "I suppose your dressing like a woman is a form of flattery," she said. She reluctantly allowed that I could indeed cross-dress whenever I wished, since it was so strong a compulsion, but only at home. Never ever outside! She repeated that, her voice tense and deliberate! I saw no problem. Terror kept me closeted. Which was one reason why my first attendance at a gender convention troubled her. It also troubled me. It was in a faraway city, but even so I was ashamed to expose my guilty secret to others. Even though that was what I was there for, I barely forced myself through my hotel room door the first morning, dressed and made up. I walked timorously down the corridor, acutely aware of my skirt and heels, shoulders very still and clutching my purse, then into an elevator with other hotel guests, and finally into a hospitality room to meet other attendees. I was wearing my favorite denim skirt and a pretty matching embroidered vest that morning, and knew I looked nice and was dressed appropriately. I saw immediately that I made a more persuasive woman than many of the other conferees, and began to feel more comfortable. We all shared the same humiliating urge, but to my delight we all accepted each other as normal! After a few days among others of my kind I returned home more at ease with my desire than I had ever before felt in my whole life. Being transgendered now seemed a gift! I finally accepted myself as normal! Trish was troubled by my "girly sleepover" as she called it, for additional reasons. She'd been extremely uneasy when I left, and when she met me at the door on my return it was with a distinct hostile edginess. She asked me abruptly whether I felt different. I understood what she was really asking. She didn't know how far I meant to go. She feared that while I was away I'd be seduced by perverts, or that I'd go gay. She worried that I might not be a mere transvestite but was an out-and-out transsexual in process of self-discovery, that I'd now want to alter my body from my skin on out. That I'd already swallowed handfuls of female hormones, or gotten my skin pumped plump with them. That I'd already set a date for surgeons to turn my penis inside out to line a functioning vagina, and to empty my scrotum for reshaping as vaginal labia. To make me a woman ready to receive men in fact as well as in appearance. She'd read about these things. She knew that hundreds, thousands of former men became New Women every year. Though she knew that many or most remain heterosexual, or "lesbians," she knew that many change in their desires. That Nature doesn't always get things right, that the medical profession fixes Nature's more obvious blunders sometimes better than they know how, that feminized husbands will sometimes divorce their wives and take husbands of their own. In her fear she'd half reconciled herself to my returning quite queer. I replied immediately that in most respects I was no different. There had been no changes in my bodily sex, male, nor in my gender identity, somewhat feminine but still at times masculine, nor in my sexual desires, I still found only women attractive, one in particular, her. I was still the same man who'd departed a few days earlier. But I now understood more about how women feel. I was no longer ashamed to want to act or look like a woman. I was a man who felt free to enjoy his femininity Trish heard me out impassively that first time. Then she'd nodded. "You're still a man you say?" she'd asked. "You call yourself a man? The way you've been dressing up all this time? You could've fooled me!" Then she'd smiled, and her smile converted that truculent near-insult into a gracious concession, into acceptance of me as a passable girl. It was really a compliment! If I seemed less of a man it was because I seemed more of a woman! I liked that! I'd smiled back, tearfully grateful for small favors, any at all, and then we kissed as we always did, as man and wife. Later in bed with her I was more passionate than ever. In the morning when I awoke I found her looking down at me seriously and affectionately. Her eyes were tearful. When I asked why she just shook her head and smiled reassuringly. "Some things are different now," she'd said. "Some day I may tell you. As a woman you might understand!" Thereafter, each time I came back from a gender meeting she'd be much more sprightly and playful. She'd ask, "Well, has my boy friend come home? Or are you only my girl friend this time? Both? Can we gossip together yet about the different guys we're sleeping with?" I loved hearing her put it that way, because it meant she accepted and enjoyed teasing both aspects of me! I couldn't help but embrace and kiss her! It was wonderful! At such moments I felt complete! So during the half-dozen years we'd been married Trish went from reluctant acceptance to relaxed approval of my transgenderism. Gradually she absorbed the truth that I felt, looked, and acted more at ease in a dress, that I was more fun to be with when I wore panties and a bra. That women's clothes felt somehow right to me. She finally understood that I was much the better person for these occasional excursions elsewhere. I'd come back from the last few, she reluctantly admitted, nicer in every way, more attentive, sweeter, and otherwise unchanged. Moreover, my out-of-town transvestism in hotels a thousand miles away eased her own fear somewhat that my compulsion might at any moment disgrace me before the neighbors, our friends, her business associates, everyone with whom we maintained our image as a solidly respectable professional couple. This was a serious matter. We lived in a small community with standards enforced by shame and gossip. Deviance of any kind signified an unsound mind, unreliability. An unmowed lawn could injure your credit rating at the bank. Sexual or gender deviance was unthinkable! And Trish wasn't a fool. She'd noticed that sometimes I felt I had to break out and play the odds against discovery. That after dark sometimes I'd drive out in a dress to mail a letter. That sometimes I'd risk all by carrying a bin of recycleables out to the curb dressed as if I were merely the woman of the house carrying out one more household chore. That once I'd tried to persuade myself I could attend a company function wearing her flowery "Nuit d'Amour" as if it were an after shave. "Any woman would know what scent you're wearing, and some men! The same with that beige lipstick you've got on!" she'd told me firmly. But she knew that my suppressed self had to assert itself. That I felt pride that I am what I am, and wasn't ashamed of it any more, or anyhow not very ashamed. She knew that the feminine part of me wasn't some unacceptable exhibitionist, drag queen, or net-stocking slut, but a quiet, tasteful, decent woman, in most respects unremarkable. That expressing that woman somehow comforted me. That I was half-persuaded that I was what I claimed to be. So she accepted that I went to out of town conventions a few times a year "to play with the other girls." She loved me. She didn't begrudge me my departures, and she welcomed my returns. Still, she feared that if I felt less ashamed after each gender meeting, perhaps I'd be all the more shameless after I got back home. There was always a danger in her mind that the woman seen flouncing into the supermarket next week might be recognized suddenly as that consulting engineer who lives on the next block, the one married to the lawyer woman, poor soul to be married to such a sick pervert. She knew and feared that our family respectability hung on a single accidentally unwiped dab of my lipstick, or on too narrowly arching a plucked eyebrow, or on a single noticeable swish of my hips. And if respectability went, her professional reputation and her clients' confidence in her would soon follow. This time I'd been away a full week, so I had to assume Trish had been worrying about these risks for a full week. My first job was to reassure her. When I opened our study door I saw her computer was on, there was some legal file on the screen, but the room was empty. So I crossed through to the far door and opened that one, delighted to be returning to my very own fragrantly scented, richly feminine inner sanctum. I'd flown home wearing an oversized zip jacket and dungarees, my bra and breast forms and pantyhose no way hinted. But here I could be myself. Off came my jacket. This was my real home! ii. As I'd expected, Trish was in a satin slipper chair reading a brief of some sort. Wearing jeans as usual, her legs tucked up tight under her butt in one of her favored Yoga positions. I saw at once she wore no bra at all under her plain white T-shirt, that her nipples were poking out noticeably from the bulging dark circles at the center of her breasts. She unfolded herself and stood up at her first sight of me. "Honey! Oh, darling! I heard you coming in, and I've been waiting! How is my girl today? Did she enjoy herself? I see you're still wearing that hairdo you'd planned for the Farewell Ball. You must have looked darling last night! You wore it all the way back on the plane too? Oh, sweetheart, that was brave! Each time you come back less and less afraid to be yourself! Of course an upswept hairdo isn't what I'd choose for you, but it's really very pretty!" For the first time, no welcoming inquiry about her "boyfriend" returning? For a week I'd been among people who were honored to call each other 'girls.' Some were actual girls by birth, and some by playful desire, but some by lifelong confusion and doubt, ordeal and sacrifice, determination, psychiatric concurrence, hormones, legal changes of identity, surgical knives, and slow, painful recovery. So it didn't seem at all odd that Trish didn't mention my male aspect. Not then. It did seem strange that she complimented me for wearing a dramatically feminine hairdo in public all the way home, that she didn't feel threatened by my exposing myself that way, but I chose to ignore that too. It was satisfying enough that she'd been thinking about the sort of hairdo she'd prefer me to wear. She lifted her face for me to kiss her, as I certainly did, and she sighed most satisfactorily when I ran a fingertip lightly over one of her protruding nipples. "No bra?" I inquired? "That's right." And that was all. Her tone told me it wasn't a topic she cared to discuss at the moment. "Honey, sit down. We have to talk. Two things happened this week you should know about." "Oh?" "Oh?" She mocked me lightly. "Yes, oh! The first is small but large. It seems someone saw you last week, someone driving by saw a tall woman open the front door and take in the morning newspaper. Hair long, a lot like your husband's, she told me, but better styled, and wearing a housecoat. She finally decided the person was a visiting relative, a sister maybe, since she seemed so much at home. Now, I'm not saying that your secret is in any danger. But you know that sooner or later it's going to become known. This is a fussy and gossipy neighborhood. Sooner or later someone will call on the police to inquire if everything's all right. And if you're home and I'm not, that can have consequences." Fair warning. Sobering news too. "I know that, Trish. Who was it?" "I'd rather not say. It would make you too self-conscious. It's someone we both know fairly well. The topic may not come up again. I told this person your sister had stopped by. That answer seemed sufficient. Maybe not next time though. We need to do something about it." "I guess," I said. I couldn't think what. I couldn't pull every blind and drapery in the house and live in the dark all day! That would seem suspicious in itself. But what else was there to do about it? "And I've figured out what to do! You'll love it! That's the second thing." "What's that?" Trish would sometimes hug me gently like a girlfriend when I was being Amy, even give me an affectionate peck on the cheek to show she was especially pleased with me -- with Amy, really. But only Andy awakened her most ardent, passionate feelings. I was Andy now for the trip home, so despite my hairdo and the bra and pantyhose I had on she replied by opening her arms wide and falling backward onto the soft divan and pulling me down on top of her. Again, a nipple naked under her thin T-shirt material brushed my arm, but this time she moaned aloud. "Trish honey, you are so hot! What's come over you?" "Well, Andy, at the moment it's you!" She grinned, and as if my full weight weren't already pressing her whole body into the soft pillows of the divan, she wrapped her arms around my neck and her legs around my waist and squeezed hard. Was her crotch already damp? Wet? Then of all things, while we were wrapped in each other she continued to talk to me, my face not six inches above hers. It must have taken tremendous concentration, the kind she'd bring to addressing a jury. "Andy, what would you think about Amy getting herself a place of her own to live in?" "What?" "Amy. Your girlhood. A place of her own. She spends all day bottled up in here, you know that. She doesn't dare show her pretty face, and it really is pretty, and she spends a lot of effort making sure of it. You have to carry her a thousand miles away by air before you dare let her loose in public. And then only for a few days here or a week there, only a few times each year. Like just now. Isn't that so?" She knew it was, but waited for me to nod. Then continued, "That's no way for any girl to live. It's ironic, too, because I know that all you want for Amy is the same normal life any woman lives. Yet she doesn't dare. Not for a moment. Not here. Not in this town. And when she's bottled up here, you're bottled up here!" All true. I nodded again. A knot was beginning to form in my stomach. Fright? Exhilaration? Tricia was up to something! Something beautiful? By itself it was a wonderful idea! To set Amy free somewhere to live her own life out in the open? To live the way she'd lived all this past week, venturing into malls and onto downtown streets and into restaurants, lunching with friends, chatting with strangers, and attracting no attention at all except as one more woman? On her own, all by herself? Could she? Of course! But would she then accept the modest limits we always placed on her? Could either of us restrain a liberated Amy? What would she be like on her own? Ooohh! I felt like leaping up and flying! What a glorious notion! "Andy sweetheart, I know you're no longer terrified of exposure, and maybe you're even beyond feeling shame if Amy should ever become known to our friends and associates here. I've worried that soon you'll feel impelled to come out at least to our friends, to be Amy to everyone who already knows Andy. Even though you know it wouldn't be pleasant, in many ways. That it would be an embarrassment we could never live down. Well, maybe you could, but it would effectively end my career here. Not one of my clients would feel he could trust the wife of a drag queen weirdo to close a simple mortgage for him, much less handle his complex business litigation. Or hers. The powerful men and women I deal with maintain tight control over their domestic arrangements, and expect others to do the same." This was sobering. "Probably true," was all I said. I was dying to kiss the delicate curves of her mouth, but this was not the moment. "So day after tomorrow Amy and I will go looking for a place for her to live. Andy's not invited. Strictly speaking, I want to take her to look at a condominium apartment the firm has just taken over in Madison in lieu of a debt. If she likes it, she can buy it easily, no problem at all, I've figured out exactly how. Madison's about ninety minutes from here by car, close enough for easy visiting but just far enough away so there's no one there who knows us. In Madison Amy can be herself!" My scalp was tingling! My eyebrows were raised high in astonishment, I could feel them, and my eyes were wide open in shock! In panic! In wild surmise! In joy! Inside me, Amy was shouting "Oh, yes! Oh, yes!" so loud I could scarcely think! Tricia saw that I saw all of the possibilities all at once, and added only, "Then Amy can be her own woman. Completely. We'd get her a complete legal identity, driver's license, credit cards, everything a woman needs. She'd own the property in her own name. Everything she keeps here could go there and remain there and remain hers. Her clothes, her jewelry, even a car we'd buy her if we didn't transfer your ownership. She could come and go as she chooses, get a job or take over your consulting and do what you do, open a bank account, entertain her own friends, do whatever she likes. You'd be her guest when you stayed with her, instead of the way things are here, with Amy your prisoner who doesn't dare ever let herself be seen." I swallowed. My head seemed to be exploding. Tricia had found a gateway to heaven and was persuading me to walk through it! "She could live a normal life, Andy." Tricia concluded. "As herself. No more compromises." Then she kissed me on the nose. "You'll need to discuss it with her. But not tonight. I think I want to make love now, but with Andy, not Amy. Tell her tomorrow that the offer's open, and ask her how she feels about it, and we'll see what she thinks. But now I need to know if there's any boy left at all in my girlfriend. I've missed you, lover! Weren't you feeling just a little bit horny for me?" For the next few hours I proved I felt terribly horny! Powerfully, lyrically, sublimely! Though it was partly as Amy! I felt so suffused with joy, so richly endowed, so tenderly grateful to my darling, my marvelous wife! And I was still wearing my bra, more Amy in my Trish's arms than she seemed to notice. I could feel myself on the edge of a delightful liberation, and my heart wouldn't stop singing! My cock rose up and pulsed with each thought of Trish's proposal, a prospective free-form feminine way of life! It hardened, and even after Trish had softly sucked me and I'd cum in her mouth, then had pushed deep into her silky wet folds and cum again in her pussy, even then it didn't soften! "I've never seen anything like this thing of yours" Tricia said in awe toward the end of a second hour of rock hard performance. "It just won't wilt! Here, let's try it this way. Exceptional behavior deserves exceptional rewards." And she turned over onto her stomach, humped her beautiful bottom high into the air, wiped my erect prick in the fluids oozing from her vagina, spread them slick over my whole cock with one hand, then guided me into her anus. For the first time in our married life! My first time ever with anyone! I slipped in effortlessly! Trish felt hot and incredibly snug, and after only a few thrusts and withdrawals I spurted into her guts helplessly yet a third time! Throbbing my heart out into her! I couldn't help it! "I thought we should both know what it would be like if Amy should ever want to let a man enter her," Trish said, turning to look at me with an impish smile when I'd stopped pulsing and just lay there humped onto her buttocks, spent. "Since that's all she can do with a man right now. That and suck cock. It feels very nice to me, honey. Amy will love it, I bet, if she ever finds anyone as sweet as you to do it with. I wish we'd done this years ago!" I'd softened a bit after that last wrenching orgasm. But when Trish spoke those words, astonishingly my cock turned solid yet again! "The idea of a hot cock spurting cum deep into Amy's pussy turns you on, does it, sweetheart? Then I really do wish we'd done this before!" I ignored her, but for yet another hour, well into nightfall, I rocked back and forth inside my wife's rump, my prick well-lubricated in my own cum, sliding in and out of her rectum while my fingers dandled her dripping clit, her swollen nipples, and occasionally her engorged pussy. We did other things I can't remember. She came and came, orgasmic wave after wave passing through her until finally she shuddered and whispered hoarsely to me, "Enough now, Andy baby. Please! I have work tomorrow! I need to sleep!" Right there in my perfumed, pastel boudoir, on that overstuffed divan of my dreams, we slept. We both slept. I remained inside her. In the morning when I awoke I found my softened member was still gripped by her sphincter, and as it hardened I pushed and pulled it in and out of her ass yet again. She awoke smiling and snugged her bottom into me yet again. It felt so very, very sweet! Not even fully erect, I came yet again inside her, as she came too in a kind of full bodied, relaxed shudder. "Amy really is ready and eager to live her own life, isn't she," Trish said, turning her head sideways on the pillow with the smile of a cat who has just eaten a whole cageful of canaries. "I bet even now she isn't letting you alone! Are you going to tell me that's only Andy fucking my rear end? I think we both know how Amy feels now. Tell Amy the world is hers if she wants it, Andy. Ask her if she'd rather hide out here or live like a lady in her own apartment. Seeing whatever kinds of lovers she prefers. I think her answer's obvious." My cock finally popped out of Trish's rear and lay there, slick and shiny and spent. She smiled and reached for it. "I'll blow this lovely thing of yours sky high if you can make it hard yet again, honey," she said. She squeezed and kneaded and pulled on it repeatedly with her whole hand. I couldn't. "I have only one question, sweetheart," I said. I couldn't remember undressing Tricia or undoing any of my own clothes, yet the two of us were now lying tangled together utterly naked, legs tossed across each other's legs. My bra -- Amy's bra -- was on the floor still half-inside my half- buttoned shirt. Can I have taken both off together over my head? My hosiery was in ruins. "Just one question. Then you can tell Amy yourself what you're proposing for us. If you're going to drive her to Madison to look at an apartment, you two will need to talk. You've never wanted to talk to her before, you know." "You're right, Andy," Tricia said soberly. "What's your question?" "What about me, Trish? I'm here too, you know. While Amy is making a life for herself in Madison, what about us? Do we live separately? Divorce? Is that what you have in mind? Where do I live?" "Oh, honey!" My Tricia's voice was so instantly concerned! "No, no, no, no! I don't want you to leave me. Not ever! It's just that, well, darling, I know now that I have to share you. I've been sharing you for years without admitting it to myself. Just this past week I've been utterly without you while you were being Amy, isn't that so? And without complaint, because apart from Amy you're an altogether satisfactory husband. Maybe a little bit because of Amy. Maybe a lot! You've suggested that sometimes, haven't you? And last night I know I was sleeping with Amy, partly, wasn't I. She was so excited inside you that she wouldn't let you quit. I had to help her take off her bra so I could suck on her nipples! That made her ecstatic, practically delirious! She made the most marvelous mewing sounds, and she held my mouth to her breasts as if I were a baby! I don't know where you were at all just then, Andy, but Amy was just wonderful!" "Well, dearest, life is compromise. I'm giving you up to Amy on a kind of trial basis. Amy won't live here any more. You'll stay with her and be her whenever you wish for as long as you wish, if she'll have you. You'll always be welcome here whenever you want to be you. You and Amy will have to work it out between you! Maybe weekdays with Amy and the weekends here? Or vice versa? Or a week each month at one place and then the other? If you should ever decide to become all Amy, she'll be welcome to visit here any time. I'm sure we can be really good friends!" Then she added, matter of factly, "There are some legal implications to giving Amy the right to be altogether herself, to own her own property and so forth. But they don't include divorce, honey. You'll see. Nothing so radical! It's much simpler!" I didn't want to ask her, but I had to. "Trish, if you're now reconciled to 'sharing' me as you call it with another woman, namely myself, is it because you feel I should share you too? With someone else?" I swallowed and closed my eyes and plunged ahead. "Is there someone else?" Having said it, I opened my eyes again and tried to read her face. She looked at me with the strangest expression, seemed about to say something, then stopped herself. "Honey," she said instead. "We're married. Marriage is founded on trust. Do you have to ask that question? You said you had only one question, and I've already answered it I think. And now another one? Such a huge one?" "No, I don't have to ask it." I noticed that she wasn't answering it, and now I was certain I didn't want her to answer it. "You might have asked me that years ago when you first took Amy into our lives. But you didn't. Why not?" It had never occurred to me to ask her such a question, that was why not. "Because as you say, we're married," was what I replied. I was no more sure what that answer meant than when she said it. "We trust each other." "Yes. When we marry, we have ideas about each other that we make up out of our own needs, hoping they'll be met. We may be deceived. But through love we find ways to satisfy each other's needs anyhow. I'm happy to suggest a way for you to satisfy your need to live as Amy, sweetheart. I'm willing to share you with that other woman you live as. That may answer your question, or it may not." Then she was silent. I'd decided not to ask her anything more, when suddenly she volunteered more. "You should know this, sweetheart. When you went to that first crossdresser's meeting a few years ago, I felt hurt and angry and a little betrayed. You remember? Well, I was having lunch with Carol one afternoon while you were away, and she sensed that something was wrong. I broke down and told her everything. All about you!" She paused and assessed my reaction. Carol was another partner in her firm, her best friend, recently divorced and frequently out on the town with different men each time, as far as I could tell. I liked her, she was sensible. In turn she's always seemed somehow amused by me, appreciative yet gently teasing. Could this be why? "You told Carol that I like to dress up as a woman." "Yes." She was watching my face closely. "And she said?" "Carol just commented that a girl's got to do what a girl's got to do, and she told me not to worry about it. 'It can be very nice, sleeping with a girl,' she said. 'Have you done it with Andy when he's a girl?' "I told her 'No.' I'd always felt uneasy about sex with Amy before then, remember?" "'Come over tonight, and I'll show you what it's like,' she said. And that night I did, and she did." I didn't understand, and it showed in my face. "We slept together," Tricia repeated. "We made love. Me and Carol! Your wife and Carol! It was wonderful! Divine! Hello?" I came down from my uncomprehending shock and tried to recover. "That one time," I managed to blurt out. "No, not just that one time," Trish said, her voice taking on a touch of patience and maybe also pity. "Ever since then, not too often, only whenever we were both in the mood." She saw I was still baffled. "A few times each month. Maybe a little more often. You see, Andy, Carol's bi-sexual. I am too, a little, which may be why living in a romantic way with a man named Amy has never really troubled me. And that's why I can share you with another woman now, with Amy. Because you've been sharing me with another woman too, now and then. All right?" It wasn't but it was. I composed my face to signify consent of sorts. "There's another reason why this is a good time to liberate Amy, Andy. Apart from issues of respectability, or Amy's ultimate happiness." She took a deep breath and looked at me, weighing her words. "Andy, for the next few months, maybe as long as a year, we won't be spending much time together anyhow. It's work. I've been promoted. I'm about to become incredibly busy. I have some vast new responsibilities." She went into a declamatory mode, as if she'd already given this speech several times already. Probably she had. "My firm has just landed a very big client. Magnum Enterprises. The Fortune Five Hundred corporation. They have all kinds of legal problems far beyond the routines their legal staff can manage! Most of my partners in various specialties will be hard at work straightening out Magnum's affairs. I've been asked to coordinate all of the processes, to keep everyone in step with policy decisions and at the same time to keep the client happy. I guess you could say that I'm the Magnum account executive. Their new general counsel. I'm in charge." "We'll be taking on three new Associates to help me, and during the next months, what with getting on top of the job and getting he right legal actions under way, I won't even have time to breathe. I'll be working late, mostly. I won't be home for your delicious dinners, not most evenings, nor on weekends either. Or were they Amy's dinners? I'll be out of town at the Magnum plant or at their corporate headquarters for weeks at a time. So we'd rarely see each other anyhow. We'd have to put our marriage on hold anyhow, even if there were no Amy." She took a deep breath, then said it, in a grand act of selfless renunciation. "Honey, I'll be neglecting you utterly for months and months! But it will be some consolation for me to know that you're not miserable without me. That you're with Amy, and being Amy, and that Amy is enjoying herself! She always does enjoy herself, doesn't she?" I suppose so. I was getting so addled by these references to me and Amy as if we were two different people yet the same person that I couldn't think straight. And I was still floating in a glorious euphoria! An opportunity to live as Amy full time, not just in the house, not just for a week, but whenever I wished for as long as I wished! With my wife's blessing! At her urging! To make an alternative life for myself as Amy! Trish couldn't have been more generous! And she knew it! "I know I'm taking a terrible chance," she said. "I know that you may disappear altogether into Amy. I'm lending you to her, and you may never come back to me. You may become altogether Amy, once she's herself. I've always been afraid of that. Ever since we were first married. Well, I've had to tell myself over and over, if that happens, it happens. If that happens, then we'll see what we'll see." She took my face between her hands and tilted it up to her face, and seriously kissed me on one eyelid. I closed my eyes, and she kissed my other eyelid. When I opened them again I saw her looking at me so seriously, so sweetly! "If that happens, sweetheart," she said slowly, "you won't be here any more to worry about it. So don't worry about it. Then there'll be just us girls." And she kissed me sweetly, softly, on my lips. And I kissed her back, softly. I felt so lucky to have a marvelous wife like this! And to have Amy too! To be Amy! My eyes teared and my face began to break up with joy! "I need to get back to work now, honey," she said gently. "Why don't you pack everything of Amy's except what she'll need to wear tomorrow. A high-powered business suit I should think, and heels, and a few pieces of her better jewelry. That Bergdorf tweed ought to do well. Tomorrow Amy enters the real world. She'll need to charm and impress court clerks and bankers so they'll fall all over themselves to accommodate us. Though I'll do the talking, and I have no doubt about the outcome. I'll attend to the paperwork for you, and tomorrow I'll drive you and Amy to Madison to check out this condo apartment. Then if it's all right I'll leave you two there. I hear it's furnished, complete, exactly the way the previous owner left it. If all goes well, I'll fly back here on my own tomorrow night and leave you and Amy the car. And leave you to be Amy as long as you wish." The thought of our separation for an unknown time suddenly seized her, and she turned and wrapped herself around me. Clutching me tightly, she said, "Oh honey, do come back and visit often. You'll always be welcome. I'll miss you, even though I'll know you're in the best of hands." She grinned maliciously. "Your own!" Miraculously, my cock began to grow again. Mine, not Amy's, and not the hybrid who had kept us groping each other all last night. I entered Tricia again, this time in her wet velvet pussy, and I pressed my cum and semen splattered belly against hers, and we worked our hips slowly into a rotating liquid rhythm. This time, as we made love we looked steadily into each other's eyes, reading and rereading there each other's love and caring and concern. Not until we both came, not violently this time but as a beautifully completed embrace, did either of us close our eyes. And then we closed them blissfully. We each knew we loved each other, never more completely than just then. iii. I must have been more jet lagged than I realized, because I fell asleep again. The telephone woke me. "Honey? You're finally up? You looked so dear sleeping! I've missed that all week, but I guess I'd better get used to missing it for a while more. I realized after I left that I may not have been clear about how you dress tomorrow. Remember that you'll leave here as Andy, but you'll arrive in Madison as Amy. That's who you are here, and that's who you'll be there, and no one else. So leave out a set of clothes for each of you. I've arranged a stop half-way where you can change over and pretty yourself up. When we get to Madison my plan is, first stop at the County Clerk's office and the Courthouse to register some papers and signatures, I'm setting them up now, and the Motor Vehicle people, I have papers for short cutting any problems there, so Amy can have her own driver's license, then the Bank, and finally the real estate people to show us the condo. They tell me here that there's no question, that the apartment's a steal, that your sister will love it! Did I mention that Amy is your sister? Unmarried, same last name, it saves fuss. It's amusing to think that if Andy ever decides to have sex with her, it would be incest in a way. There's all the more reason for Amy to forget about Andy and just do her own thing. Then, my darling, when the apartment's yours, I'll take myself to the airport and leave you to begin your adventure. This is really so exciting!" "O yes, we're having some people over tonight to give Andy a kind of going away party. A few friends, neighbors, and associates. So be sure you're Andy at least this one last time. Take down that darling hairdo one more time. All right? I'll tell you why later. I think you'll be pleased. It'll make things a lot easier for both of us afterward." She was in her efficient lawyer mode, obviously. Making plans, being persuasive and yet matter of fact. I trusted her. I wasn't fully awake. "OK!" I replied. "Good!" was all she said, and hung up. All through the rest of the day I packed up Amy's things except her outfit for her official debut in Madison. And a purse to get her through the day. Her essentials were still packed and in the car, a week's worth of selected conference dresses and party gowns. Most of her wardrobe went neatly into cartons I'd saved from our move to this house, and then into the car. As I emptied my boudoir bureau drawers of their lovely little hoards of accumulated panties and teddies and slips and pantyhose and waist cinchers and so on, it was exciting to realize for the first time that these were no longer optional gear. They were my wardrobe. I was cutting off alternatives. Andy's clothes would remain here. I made a few discoveries. Some of my sexiest lace panties had found their way into Trish's bureau drawers. Probably courtesy of our part-time cleaning help. Some dresses and blouses and skirts were so unforgivably unfashionable I could never wear them again, not in public, so even though they were relatively unworn they went into a box marked for the Salvation Army. I came upon my younger self, or Amy's, in the form of a stretchy black satin micro-mini, one of several dresses I'd bought when I liked imagining myself a slut seduced into unspeakably obscene practices in private dance clubs. I reluctantly added that to the Salvation Army box, then took it back, to remind myself that the onetime aspiring sexy whore of my fantasy life was now actually about to become a respectable woman full time. My eyes brimmed and my heart nearly stopped with joy as I realized that. That Trish was not only allowing me to do this, she'd in fact proposed it! I was humbled and speechless. As I packed Amy's cosmetics, I wondered what Tricia had been using all week in my absence. Had she finally acquired her own, now that she was lawyering like a lady in full regalia. And if so, as her personal beautician I was curious, what shades had she chosen for herself? So I went to the bathroom off our master bedroom to see what was there. Nothing new in the medicine chest. The bed hadn't been touched last night of course, and it was still rumpled from her previous nights when I hadn't been there to tidy it up. I pulled it together, and found a pair of lace panties wrinkled into the bed sheets. Split crotch panties, really down and deliciously dirty! Were they mine? Had Trish missed me so much during my week away she'd taken to wearing even my most daring undies in my absence. Or had she taken them to bed to remind herself that this too was part of me. Were they more evidence that she now accepted Amy for what she was, and me for what I am, after years of reluctance, then indifference, then mere toleration, and only now loving support? No, wait! I'd already packed the only pair of split crotch panties I owned, acquired originally to wear with my slut outfit. Were these Carol's? Did Tricia humble herself to lick Carol's lower regions while Carol never even troubled to undress herself? Or were they Tricia's, to provide Carol's tongue access to her own dear little clit? Or someone else's tongue? I decided not to think about it! It could drive you mad! I finally found Trish's own make-up neatly arrayed across the entire top of her bureau, tastefully chosen shades of all sorts, pale beiges and roses for daytime and dark mauves and wines for evening, different shades of eye shadow for different tones and colors of outfits. Only this past week she had equipped herself for all sorts of occasions, I thought. No wonder she felt she could manage without her espoused beautician. There was even a little cloth zip case sitting there, a travelling kit of color-coordinated bare essentials, mascara, eye-liner, shadow, lipstick, blush, and foundation. Inside one of the zipper pockets was a handwritten note that read, "Love, Greg." I knew no Greg. They were this season's colors, browns and umbres, brand new cosmetics, never touched. Some rejected gift one of Trish's women friends had handed down to Trish now that she was using make-up? A gift from a boyfriend some secretary had decided to side-slip as a gift to her boss? Again I decided not to think about it right now. Finally everything was packed and out of the house and loaded into and onto our car, five bags and a dozen boxes of women's things for Amy, my computer and a box of manuals and disks for my work. Anything overlooked I could get on my next visit. My next "visit"! An odd word. This was my home, the place I returned to from wherever and called home. But when I next returned it would be as a visitor. As Amy? Obviously, I hadn't packed to be anyone else! But if I live in Madison full time as Amy, how can I ever return here? How can I dare let myself be seen in this neighborhood as Amy, coming and going? Sooner or later someone would wonder and suspect! I put the question to Tricia the moment she got home. "Sweetheart, that's why we're having your farewell party tonight. Andy has been called away to consult on the construction of a massive Saudi pipeline and refinery employing thousands of workers from around the world. He'll be gone for many months, and I'm happy for him but also distraught. Fortunately, I'll be almost as busy and exhausted as Andy, organizing my new client's affairs. That much is true. Now and then Andy's sister Amy will look in on me to see if I'm all right. She's a lovely woman, a little younger than Andy and a little priggish, but a dear. Maybe she'll even stay with me for a few days now and then, Andy?" What a clever woman! "That's a wonderful cover story, Trish. But won't Andy be visiting you here now and then too?" "Now and then." She looked at me seriously. "I'd thought he would often, originally, but now I don't think so. Not too often, honey, or things could get awkward. Among other things your cover will begin to collapse. And Amy should have complete freedom for once, unencumbered by Andy. Of course Amy will always be welcome here!" "She'll want to visit you often, darling!" I told her. Why did I feel this was a kind of farewell? "You're giving up so much so I can indulge myself as Amy! I owe you so much! Tell me anything you want in return and it's yours!" I kissed her and held her close. She buried her face in my shoulder, then looked up into my face. Some mischievous thought had crossed her mind, obviously, and left its shadow in her expression. But all she said was, "I want you the way I want you, that's what I want, darling. I'm getting that. Right now I want you happy! I'll tell you when I want something else!" We just stood embracing. And my beautiful wife couldn't have been more affectionate all evening. Trish had indeed arranged for many friends and acquaintances to drop by to wish me God Speed, and I thanked them. Some joked about my future as an enormously wealthy Sheik or a Pasha, and took note that the Koran allowed me three more wives. I told them that when I could I'd invite them over to eat lambs eyeballs and other delicacies, and then asked them earnestly to look after Tricia. They all agreed. A few of Trish's law partners and their wives showed up too, people I didn't know. They assured me I was fortunate in my marriage, and that I shouldn't worry at all about Trish, she was superb at looking after herself and her clients both. The usual. We all felt grateful to my sister, who would look in on Trish now and then and urge her to take care of herself and not work so hard. She introduced me to a law partner named Georgy, pronounced with a hard "G" in the Russian manner, who immediately instructed me to call him Greg. A large, vigorous looking man with a slight accent and his hair slicked back as if he were an Andorran or Graustarkian Prince. He congratulated me on my beautiful and intelligent wife, and told me how fortunate they all felt to be associated with her. I told him I appreciated that he felt that way, and on the spur of the moment, while handing him his second drink and myself my fourth, I asked him if he was the "Greg" who had given her a make-up kit. He seemed puzzled. "Even diamonds are an unsuitable gift for a wife like yours," he said with old world courtliness. "But last Christmas I did give the firm's secretaries and all the women Associates make-up kits. And all the men tie tacks. Why do you ask?" I told him I'd seen one on Trish's bureau with a note from "Greg" and had wondered. He was vastly amused! "It was your wife Trish who suggested that I give those make-up kits to all the secretaries, when I asked her what gifts might be suitable. 'Flatter their femininity,' she told me. So I did. With an affectionate note in each. Some of them thought cosmetics were too pers