Just Think It Through free porn video

Not to be read by anyone proscribed. If you're too young to know what this means, it means you. Just Think it Through by Vickie Tern Who knew? lt all looks so inevitable now. How couldn't I have seen how it would play out? But all I saw then was a marvelous, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to live out my dream with no cost, no obligation. To be all the woman I could be at least once in my life. Of course I leaped at it. Emily emphasized that it was my decision. "Just think it through, Cary," she told me. "It's altogether your choice. It does look to me like the opportunity of a lifetime. You do it and then you're done with it, but at least you'll have done it! I'd rather you didn't want to at all. I'd rather you were the kind of man who'd never ever even felt tempted, you know that. But given this ... thing you've got, I can't discourage you. So go ahead. For a week or two, maybe three, maybe even a month or more. For however long it takes. Then I fervently hope you'll see what it's really like and get tired of it, and this deep need you've got will disappear, and you'll settle in to be what I've always wished you were. And that'll be that, no harm done. You'll have gotten it out of your system once and for all. I really do hope so." She really did. But she left it up to me. Completely. Problem was, I didn't expect ever to get it out my system. Oh, maybe one day I'd find myself so humiliated that I couldn't ever again risk it. Maybe there'd be a public exposure so staggering that I could never again pass a dress shop or lingerie store without wincing, never again envy all those beautiful woman I wanted to be, not without feeling self-betrayed. But short of that, I assumed that to the end of my days I'd feel what I always felt whenever I crossdressed -- serenity, exaltation, wholeness. A thrill that's both erotic and deeply satisfying. Joy. And why not? To see there in my own mirror an attractive woman elegantly groomed just for me, one who understands my most trivial needs and most shameful weaknesses, who admires me because I'd love to be everything she is? Who feels flattered by it? Who sees to it that before the day ends I'll be rewarded for my devotion to her by her own hand? I've been that mirrored dream woman ever since that magical afternoon in my early teens when I was clearing out beach resort lockers for the season and found a girl's bathing suit someone had left behind and tried it on and ... oh God! Look! I had tits! And curved hips! And the cutest round ass! I looked just like all the girls I'd ever adored from a distance but was always too shy to approach. My thin arms didn't look scrawny any more -- they were a girl's arms! I remember how I grasped my new breasts gently and lifted them up, and they moved ever so slightly. How when my fingers felt for my protruding little nipples, my whole body sweetly transformed itself into a heavenly harp. How blissful that sensation! How as I stroked down my rounded hips to my gorgeous thighs, how I knew that this, this was what I was inside, what I wanted to be, how I wanted to look. Though I knew that this girl had to remain my secret self. I was also a boy, after all. Only a boy, at least on the outside. Yet a year later I'd accumulated a small stash of clothes and cosmetics so the girl in me could sometimes be herself on the outside too, even though mostly she had to pretend she was me. They were carefully hidden away, and I wore them around the house only when my parents were sure to be elsewhere. In college, where privacy was harder to come by, the same thing. I'd now and then brush my hair forward into bangs and put on a bra and panties under unisex girls'jeans and a wide-necked t-shirt and prowl the quad after dark, just to grant the girl in me her due, as now and then she insisted. She always showed her appreciation afterward by giving me a hand job. I'd sit in the library supposedly studying but in fact scoping other girls like me -- as I liked to think of them -- girls as gorgeous as I always was in my imagination when I took the trouble to make myself up properly. Once or twice girls might notice that my lips were just a bit too pink or my eyes a trace of shadow too dark, that I was wearing a bra or maybe a t-shirt not quite cut like a boy's t-shirt, and they'd come over to satisfy their curiosity why, to examine more closely whether I was actually a boy or a girl. But I was afraid of exposure, so I'd always cut them off with brief replies. Because whatever else I was, I was supposed to be a man, even when risking ridicule as a sissy. I longed to be in one of the lovely circles of laughing and chatting girls I saw everywhere. The girl in me wanted to socialize with her own kind. One time I actually dressed up all the way, curled my hair and put on make-up, sneaked out at midnight, and drove twenty miles away to a bar, Then bought myself a drink in a husky contralto voice, and looked for some women to chat with. But a man actually tried to pick me up, and that wasn't what I wanted! I got so scared I fled, and I never tried that again! Because I didn't want to attract men. I wanted to attract women. To be one among them. Now suddenly here she was, Emily, my own wife, inviting me to live as a woman full time, such that no one could ever imagine I'd ever been anything else. But -- and here she was deadly serious -- when the masquerade grew tiresome, that would have to be that. The girl part of me would have to leave town, and we'd neither of us ever see her again. I'd become the man she preferred to have as her husband and no one else ever. I had to agree to that in advance. Otherwise, I'd have to abandon the girl in me and become that man now. Or else end our marriage -- then, of course, I'd be free to do whatever I liked. How could I say no? ************ My transvestitism had been a secret I kept from Emily until the night I proposed marriage to her. Then I told her all, I had to. I was so scared! I loved her, and I knew she loved me -- we were affectionate and understanding and caring, and our friends all thought we were a match made in heaven. But she had to know about my one kink. I remember how we sat on a couch in my little two-room apartment while I told her as casually as I could that I'd been crossdressing ever since my early teens, that I was a little ashamed of it but it was a powerful compulsion and gloriously satisfying and that I'd want to do it even after we were married. That I was telling her this because I wanted to marry her for better or for worse for life and I wanted no secrets between us. I started out trying to sound matter-of-fact about it all, but as I plowed on my cool collapsed. She sat silent, listening. Dread grew as I spoke, as I became increasingly fearful that I was driving away from me the most wonderful girl I could ever hope to know, this rare prize, all my future happiness. But I couldn't help it! I couldn't keep secrets from her! As I spoke, she remained impassive. She listened. Just listened. I couldn't read her face. So I made it all sound worse than I had to. I began to babble. I told her everything. About my secret closet and bureau. My make-up kit and my hair curlers. My wig collection, not touched for years because I'd grown my own hair long enough to hold an occasional style and set. How now and then on Fridays I went to a salon where a hairdresser named Prissy shaped my hair, perhaps knowing it was a woman's style she was maintaining on a man's head. How could she not know? How I'd always tip Prissy generously to assure the same care she gave her other women customers. I'd think 'other' women customers because she sometimes seemed not to know I was a man, and would gossip to me about which of us were cheating on who's husbands as if I'd tut-tut or be amused, or turn pensive, like her other customers. Or she'd offer to streak or highlight and perm my hair -- "honey, it'll give it much more life and manageability, and look really cute!" she'd say. Or she'd urge me to get a proper manicure, to decorate my fingertips with one of the fashionable new colors. "You have such lovely hands, you should show them off!" she'd say. Always, always reluctantly, I'd turn her down. But all weekend I'd be delighted by the feminine hairdo she'd given me, whenever I glanced at myself in the mirror, until Monday morning when at last I'd shampoo it flat and returned to my drab men's look. In short, I explained that I loved looking and feeling feminine whenever I could without anyone knowing. That I always had. That I'd often tried to ignore or suppress the desire, but it always came back. Overwhelmingly, blissfully. Now it could well deprive me of the love of my life, so now I hated it even though I loved it! Because I wanted to marry her. I wanted to become one with her. Then, having completed this hopeless, desperately earnest proposal of marriage, I stopped talking. What did I expect? Emily was baffled. She heard me out in silence, then spoke. "What's wrong with just being a man?" she asked me simply. She appreciated my openness, she sympathized when she saw how ashamed I was yet how determined I was to tell all. But a man who feels compelled to dress up and pretend to be a woman? Incomprehensible! What in the world for? Why? I had no answers. There were no answers. "Nothing's wrong with being a man!" I told her. "Nothing! I like being a man. That's what I am. But it isn't enough. It's so ... ordinary. I love much more the way I feel when I'm a woman. It's ... it feels like a delicious violation of something and yet also a rare privilege! It feels so wonderful! As if I'd become one with myself." She established quickly that no, I wasn't gay, I felt nothing for other men, I wanted no part of any, not to live with nor to cherish, have, or hold, not at all. No way. I desired women, and above all others I desired her, Emily. Because women have what I most love and know I lack -- softness, grace, poise, beauty, delicacy, kindness, gentleness. I loved all those things in women, and especially in her. "Those things -- assuming I had all those things in me -- wouldn't they be enough? Why would you need to feel them in you too?" "Because I love them. I want to feel they're mine, that I possess them and they possess me." It was as good an answer as any. She gave that careful thought. "I see," was all she said. "The way being a woman possesses me, in a way." Slowly she turned her head to look directly into my eyes. "All right, Cary," she said. "Show me." "What?!" "Your grace, delicacy, and beauty. Show me." "Now?" She picked up a magazine. "I'll be here," she said, leaning back on the couch. "Don't take too long. A fast version will do." Oh, my God! With my heart pounding I rushed into the bathroom and checked my face -- no need to shave. So I quickly put on foundation and mascara, lots of mascara, and a light eye shadow with my fingertips, and a pale rose lipstick, nothing too assertive, a stroke of eyebrow pencil on already-overplucked brows, then into the bedroom and tore my clothes off and slipped into a bra and panties, no time for stockings so a long denim skirt to the ankles and black flats, breast forms and a wide-necked white stretch tunic. And quickly brushed my hair back, then back-brushed it up and gave myself bangs, then fluffed and patted it lightly into a crown, blessing Prissy silently for giving me such an easy-care hairdo. No jewelry -- well, all right, gold pinch hoop earrings and a single thin gold chain around my neck to lend delicacy, as requested. One last look, and twenty minutes after I'd scampered out I walked carefully back into the room where Emily sat reading and gently lowered myself into the chair opposite her, knees together, ankles crossed, hands folded in my lap. And sat there wide-eyed, as still as if paralyzed. When Emily looked up -- she was deliberately continuing to read her magazine article -- she'd be the first person on the planet, after me, to see me as I loved to see myself but had never dared show myself to anyone. She did finally look up, casually, as if for only a moment, as if she expected to glance and then return to the article she was reading. "Cary?" she said, in a small wondering voice. Then stronger, "That's remarkable!" Then, "I'd wondered if you'd be freaky, hard to look at, but you're really rather pretty, do you know that? You do have a good face for this sort of thing. You even carry yourself differently." "Thank you, Emily," I said in my well-practiced flute voice. That was as much as I dared say. I sat there, light-headed, my pulse racing, afraid I might faint, and just continued to look at her with my eyes wide open, trying to project honest innocence. Terrified. "Thank you for sharing this part of you with me, Cary," she then said. "It can't have been easy for you. None of this. As for marrying you, now I need to think about it. I can't say I cherish marrying a part-time woman, but I love you and I don't want to be unfair to either of us. I need time. Wait. I'll tell you when I'm ready." So it wasn't an outright 'No!' That was all I could hope for. It was enough. I thanked her again, and as she rose and looked for her purse, I tried to say something else, but the words only caught in my throat, and I gurgled. She understood. Just before leaving she leaned over and gave me a slight, sisterly peck on the cheek. "Bye now, sweetheart," she said. So I was still that much, anyhow! Staring at the closed door after she'd left, I realized that the strain had exhausted me. I crept into bed in my bra and panties and was asleep before I could turn off the light. The next day I called her, then brought over to her place all sorts of respectable professional literature on the subject, lists of websites and so on, enough to ease all further fear that I was queer or wanted a sex change, or was otherwise a deviant or pervert, a poor marital risk best abandoned while she could still cut her losses and run. Over the next weeks we saw each other as before, and she read it all, and was mollified but not really persuaded. Nothing was said, but I could tell she'd decided that it might not be wrong for a man to want to do this, but somehow it wasn't right either. Understand, I'm a very nice person. Everyone knows it, that's how I was raised. And smart and witty, and sensitive to other people, and hard working at what I do, all the things girls like to see in men once they get over feeling attracted to the dangerous, exciting ones and begin thinking about those who'd make good husbands. Except that I'm not a hunk -- I'm only mid-sized. But Emily knew what she wanted in a man, and she knew it was someone like me. That alone kept her from rejecting me outright. She consulted certain girlfriends, I learned later. She must have found it difficult. Emily was raised to cherish propriety, respectability, reputation, the good opinion that responsible people bestow on each other. She disliked and scrupulously avoided all eccentricity in dress, appearance, or behavior, and was much admired because both straight and square. Yet here she was with my oddity staring her in her face, so of course she asked for advice. What others thought would weigh with her. Whatever her feelings about me, she'd need to retain their respect. After all, to marry a self-confessed transvestite? Knowingly? Well, I'd made my case and could only hope. For three weeks we saw each other as before, went to movies and friends' apartments, and concerts, and ate out, and chatted, and never once mentioned either my peculiar marriage proposal or her lack of a response to it. Then during the fourth week, when we were in a quiet little bistro having a drink before ordering dinner, she herself raised the subject. She'd made up her mind, she told me, and as always she spoke with exact assurance. She told me that if I hadn't been so painstakingly honest with her she'd have broken off our relationship immediately despite her strong feeling for me. But I'd convinced her I meant to live with her with no reservation or deception, and that was a very great gift. She appreciated the enormous risk I'd taken, revealing myself in the name of honesty. It had only deepened her admiration and love for me. So, yes, she would marry me. If .... At this point my eyes teared up, and a sob lurched out even as I tried to stifle the others. I started to cover my face, but she reached out to grasp my hands between hers and keep talking, so my tears streamed down freely. Tears of joy. She'd marry me, but only if I'd agree to certain conditions for the containment of this ... habit. To all of the conditions. I must have looked eagerly, pathetically grateful, and I listened attentively, raptly, as she delivered her obviously carefully prepared speech. First, I could continue to crossdress, but always with discretion, deep in the closet. I could never appear dressed as a woman in anyone's presence other than hers. Never be seen to be a transvestite by anyone other than her, and never anywhere other than at home. She could look at me easily enough because when done up, frankly, I looked like a rather lovely girl. But for anyone else to see me as other than a man was unbearable. It would make us both subjects of gossip and ridicule. And that could threaten her career -- she was a financial officer at a major branch of a large corporation. It didn't matter to me, she understood that -- I was a free lance writer and my work was judged as itself and nothing else. But her effectiveness depended on maintaining perfect propriety in appearance as well as actuality. That condition was easy enough. I hardly ever left the house in girl mode, and then only ambiguously dressed and made up, for the thrill of perhaps ... but no, since college I'd never deliberately gone out dressed as a girl. Well, once on my way home from Prissy's salon my hat had blown off and exposed my new ragamuffin-cut, blow-dried hair, and a man had retrieved it with a polite "Here you are, ma'am." I was delighted, but had never let on. If anything I was as cautious, as fearful of exposure as Emily. I often wore bras and panties under my men's clothing, as when in college, but I always made certain they never showed. "What about Prissy?" I asked. "What about my hairdresser?" Emily smiled. "I suppose not even your hairdresser can know for certain. You'll never confirm or deny anything to her." I never had. That didn't seem a problem. Then there was a second condition. Only on weekends. Whether one day or two made no difference, but for five days a week, when she came home from the office she wanted to see only her husband. Only her husband. On weekends I could look however I chose, wear anything, if we weren't planning to go out or have friends over. If my appearance troubled her she'd simply find things to do elsewhere -- shop, visit, do whatever would take her out of the house. But she didn't expect to feel troubled by my appearance. "I suppose it'll be like living with a girlfriend, or a sister," she said, and I exulted to hear it. Though she did hope we'd have an active enough social life to limit my self-indulgence even on weekends. That was pretty much my own accustomed schedule. I was a weekend crossdresser, when I could be, always regretting when I couldn't be, which was often enough. When I couldn't dress up, panties served, and a bra under nearly everything but a T-shirt. Sometimes I'd add a slip. And colorless if glossy lipstick. Sometimes only an undetectable brown mascara, not the inky black I knew made my eyes look gorgeous, fabulous. I'd wear only just enough to reassure the girl in me that she wasn't being neglected. So I just nodded again. That condition was also acceptable. Third, Emily said, never expect her to participate in this ... thing. In any way. She wanted to believe she was married to a man, and she'd persist in believing it despite the evidence of her own eyes. She refused to be involved in my fantasy womanhood, not even to acknowledge that I was dressed, much less how. This would be the last time she'd ever speak of my ... habit, or seem to notice it, no matter how flamboyantly girly I might look or how swish feminine my behavior. No matter how bizarre my appearance, she simply would not see it. Our lives would proceed at all times as if I weren't a crossdresser. I was never to mention it to her, nor would she to me. That was harder. I'd hoped to share all aspects of this second most important thing in my life with the girl who was the first most important thing. I'd hoped to ask her advice about all sorts of feminine things and offer her mine, to chat cheerily as women do, girl to girl. To be her sister or girlfriend, as she'd herself suggested, as well as her husband. But she said it explicitly, "Even on weekends, I won't act as if I were your girlfriend, and you won't be mine. I'll treat you the same as on any other day." Again I nodded, more solemnly than before. "Oh, I'd better say this now, because I won't want to once this is all signed and sealed. You do make a remarkably attractive girl when you're dolled up, the kind I'd enjoy being with if I didn't know you were actually my husband. I have queer friends and effeminate work associates, and we get on fine -- I enjoy being with them because it's so relaxed, there's almost no sexual tension between us. Well, your face is lovely, but I suppose I should tell you now, there's one discordant note -- your waistline is a little thick, so your hips look straight. You'll need to do something about it." I was baffled. Was this a mixed signal? She lifted her chin proudly, as if to say 'Keep in mind that I'm the real thing and you're not!,' but then explained. "We're about the same height. I watch my waist carefully, I have a thing about being overweight, and I'm afraid that on weekends despite myself I'll be watching yours too. I just will. So your waist will need to look ... appropriate. Whenever we're being two women together your waist will need to be even thinner than mine, I suspect, to give your hips a proper feminine curve. So I'd like you to diet. Whatever your dress size, drop down one more." She smiled. "I'd prefer of course that you were a man who lives on steak and french fries, not on cottage cheese. I'd happily keep our fridge filled with porterhouses and filets. Just try me! But whatever you do, you will need to look your best. That's why I'm allowing you your hairdresser. I won't live with a slob or a freak." "All right," I replied. "I want to keep your respect by whatever means necessary." Then a fourth thing. "Well, see if you can respect this next condition. It may not be easy for you." She stared directly at me. "Cary, don't ever expect me to have sex with you when you're dressed like a woman. That part of you stays out of our bed. I don't say I'm unable -- I was bi-curious in college and I had some very nice experiences, never mind what kind. I've been intimate with other women and enjoyed it. But with a man I want only what men can do. You are my true love, and I've realized during the past few weeks that I love you very deeply and don't want to lose you. But when I hold you in my arms I never want to be reminded that you're sometimes effeminate. I don't want you to remind me of the women I've had sex with, when I felt soft mouths tasting of lipstick, or when those mouths went down on me and wafted me high up. How a woman's dainty hands can feel when they're touching you everywhere, and ....well, never mind! I want to think of you only as a man, as my man, only my man, my only man, my strength. Not some addled variant sissy, a girly man. I want to keep those two worlds of feeling utterly separate in my mind." This was harder still. She'd told me a little about her experimental liaisons with a few girlfriends during her college years, and I'd secretly hoped she'd want to renew them with me. "I can be both things to you, Emily," I said. "I'm a man, so I can be a man for you. But I can also be a woman for you whenever you prefer that kind of loving." I was thinking that this really would be the best of all possible worlds for me. I was trembling. She saw, and let me down gently. "But that would breach our understanding that I never acknowledge you as a woman, wouldn't it? It would also put my marriage vows at risk. I want to remain faithful to the man I'm marrying, if I can. Can I also pledge fidelity to a woman I'm also marrying? Can I acknowledge that a woman has the same access to my body as my own husband, and then declare that I'm still being true to my husband? I don't think so. If one woman, you, why not others too?" This made a sort of sense. She wasn't finished, though. "Then there's this. To the extent that I think of you as a woman, not a man, am I still married to a man? If you're only a part-time man, would it be a betrayal of you if I also slept with another man, also part-time? Do you really want to be the woman I sleep with when I have no husband?" I couldn't argue those points. "No, I don't," I said, swallowing. I'd thought through none of these implications. Emily'd obviously considered all of them. "And lastly, I need an escape clause. I reserve the right to ask more of you if it ever seems necessary, or less, so I'll never ever myself feel trapped by these conditions. I understand that for you crossdressing, looking like a woman, is a kind of compulsion, an urge you can cope with but not suppress. Well, if on some very rare occasion -- maybe never -- I should ask you to do something -- or not do something -- connected with your feminine ... expression, I'll need to know you'll do it. I need that assurance in advance. This, I recognized immediately from the femdom websites I frequented, was something like a "safe word." Fair enough. Moreover, I liked the idea, I realized with a spasm of erotic pleasure. In effect, it put Emily in charge of my crossdressing. Whether I did it or how I did it would hereafter always be subject to her implicit approval or veto. Well, it was anyhow. It had been all along. She had to separate my womanliness from my manliness in her own mind, for both our sakes, yet at the same time she had to allow it an outlet. All this was reasonable, I was thinking, better overall than I could have hoped for, far better than I'd feared. Again my eyes teared up. "You can accept these conditions, honey? You can help me to accept you as you are by accepting them?" I told her Yes! Yes! Yes to everything! Everything! Unabashed, I wept. She stroked my hands and consoled me. I was now her betrothed, her dearly beloved, and she now saw how desperate my fear had been that I might lose her, how strong my love was for her yet how powerful my need, how agonized I'd been that I was unable to give up either. "It's all right now, dear," she said. "It's all right. Shall we order dinner now, or would you rather take me home?" We went straight home. It was wonderful! ************ And so was our marriage. For five years we more or less kept to our agreement. On weekdays we were companions, friends, lovers, sharing what someone called 'the endless conversation' of a good marriage. We joked, we consulted, we shared, we cared, we were of one mind. Yet even so, I'd look forward to the weekend when I could look and feel ... lovely, my other self. It seemed so thrilling, so wicked, so dangerous, yet so delightful, such a marvelous transgession of sacred secret territories reserved for each sex, an indulgence that absorbed and always rewarded the time and effort I gave it. When my mirror told me I looked beautiful, as it always did after I'd spent hours making myself beautiful, I couldn't have been happier. And I have to confess it, sometimes I did let that woman in the mirror seduce me into a hand job. I wasn't always faithful to Emily. Not exactly. It also occurred to me that except for my promises to Emily I could have been dressed almost all the time. Emily went to work each morning in her downtown skyscraper, and I could have settled to work in my study in a comfy leisure outfit, a fetching slack suit, or even dressed to the hilt in heels and a flirty skirt. I was a professional daydreamer with a lucrative career -- a writer of pop novels, a plotter of comic book lines of action, a film and TV script doctor, an ingenious conceiver of fictions and modifier of other people's, an editor of ghost-written autobiographies. I did whatever writing needed doing or improving, and gradually I'd gotten known among a small circle of similarly talented people and those who hire them. When a story written for commercial purposes finds itself derailed, who ya gonna call? Me. I could get it back on track, and usually did. My fantasy experience with women's ways made me especially valuable when I was writing for women's magazines, or re-creating some other writer's women characters, or adding a twist to a soap opera script. I became known for it. Few editors or producers ever met with me, so few knew whether I was a man or a woman. But for Emily's sake my clothes looked masculine during the week even when my mind was roaming through feminine territory, as it often did. They looked masculine even if they were bought off women's racks in women's clothing stores, more unisex than masculine. Or more unisex than feminine. Emily never seemed to notice, so I did stretch the rule sometimes, and wear girls' jeans or "man-tailored" shirts that buttoned the wrong way. I'd sometimes shop for women's clothes during the week, and who can blame me if I'd try them on as soon as I got home? On weekdays our sex lives flourished -- we were wonderfully passionate. Emily's inclinations were vanilla, as you'd expect of a woman properly reared to respectability, but within those proprieties as she saw them she was intense and uninhibited, She loved everything about fucking, though anything else we did was only occasional, I suspect mainly to please me. Her preference was for pricks and pussies joined in holy matrimony, for cocks and cunts. But she'd sometimes allow me to worship her body as it deserved, preening like a cat awakenening from sleep when I licked her in secret places, especially between her legs, especially where her slit was pink, moist, and as her juices began to flow, delicious. Now and then she'd attempt oral sex on me, but never more than a lick and a promise, and not often. But many times each week we'd embrace and make love passionately, devotedly, plunging deep into and wrapping tight around each other, wondrously close, throbbing our climaxes together. We'd become one flesh, and feel like each other. Often. Or so I'd imagine. Never on weekends. On weekends I'd make myself gorgeous and then if I could I'd remain that way until Sunday night. Saturday morning was an especially glorious girl time spent soaking in a perfumed bubble bath, eliminating any sparse body hairs, then throwing on a a negligee with my hair pinned up. Then back to the bedroom, and slowly, luxuriously, I'd apply my make-up and then dress for the day. Maybe I'd wear no more than a sporty blouse and jumper or a flouncy print dress, with a swipe of lipstick and a brush of mascara. Sometimes I'd wear casual makeup, sometimes flirtatious, sometimes smoulderingly seductive. Sometimes I'd brush out a soft hairstyle -- courtesy of Prissy -- implying a soft, yielding, inner vulnerability. Or darling curls. Then in the evening maybe I'd change to an off the shoulder long gown and darker, more sophisticated makeup. All this just to sit around and read, or browse the computer, or watch TV -- never sports programs on weekends of course, only cooking programs, or women's gossip shows and melodramas. Sometimes I'd dress to work on a project as if I actually were my own feminine counterpart -- I named her 'Carrie'-- even though Cary always signed the completed work when he mailed it off. Sometimes I'd dress like a maid in order to help with the housework, though our schedules had me doing much of the housework routinely anyhow. If you look it, live it, was my motto, and vice versa. A feminine appearance was my cue to feel and behave as feminine as I could imagine myself. I loved it. I got to be very good at it. I felt privileged merely to stand wearing heels and feel my ankles flex, or merely to sit and smooth my skirt under me and feel my nylon undies slide under my skirt against the chair cushions. Sunday evening always felt a little elegaic, sad, as I removed my fingernails and creamed off my make-up and unclasped my bra, the enchantment ended, and my life again became ... ordinary. If friends invited us out on Saturdays or Sundays, even if we invited them in, my time en femmne was truncated and I felt cheated. When I had to be out of town over a weekend to consult with a client, I'd consider it a lost weekend, an opportunity for pleasure gone forever, no fee really worth the sacrifice. Increasingly I turned down such invitations. Emily meanwhile did turn a blind eye to my womanliness. She never seemed to see or hear anything feminine about me. On weekends we talked as we always did, though I used my feminine voice, and except that she avoided physical nearness she seemed to see nothing exceptional in me at all. No matter that my temperament was so much nicer on weekends, not insistent or querulous or disputatious as occasionally during the week when I was a man and irritated by something. On weekends I was always considerate, sweet, helpful, sympathetic, generous. No matter how pretty I made myself -- and I did let Prissy set my hair in lovely shapes to look especially nice for my darling -- she never seemed to see it. No matter how I was dressed, whether stylish or casual, no matter what my face looked like, Emily never registered that anything about me was out of the ordinary. She could be taking a dress from her closet and telling me of some incident at work while I happened to be sitting at my make-up table applying foundation cremes and eye shadows, maybe taking my hair out of rollers. But she'd talk to me exactly as if I were hunching myself into sweats and loafers before going downstairs to lounge, drink beer, and burp. Or I'd be clearing the table with her and something would spill on my skirt -- let's say, red wine. Of course everything ceases when wine spills, so the tannins in the stain can be attended before the stain sets. For myself and Emily as for all women, caring for a nicely tailored garment when it's been stained has the highest priority. Whether Emily liked my wearing a skirt or not, and decidedly she did not, she'd want me to do whatever needed doing to save it from permanent damage. She'd respect my impulse, and simply wait until I returned from the kitchen with the stain dealt with, the emergency over. Yet the whole time she'd try to act as if nothing was wrong, as if there were neither stain nor skirt. She'd just keep chatting and clearing the table. The first time, I deliberately delayed attending to a few drops of wine on a blouse. I intended to sprinkle salt on it, a common housewife's emergency remedy supposedly so the stain will rinse away easily afterward, something all women know and Emily herself did when necessary. She withheld advising me what to do, though I could see her getting edgy as the minutes passed and my hand advanced no closer to the salt shaker. When I was wearing women's clothes, her prime directive was to see nothing at all. That was the deal. But when I finally picked up the salt shaker her relief was palpable. There were other ways she seemed to acknowledge she knew I was wearing a dress, if I happened to be wearing a dress. I treasured them. I kept to my diet, and though nothing showed during the week when I wore loose men's clothes, on weekends I wore extremely svelte clothes -- jackets that nipped way in at the waist, or gowns that slithered past my now-nicely-curved hips on their way to the floor. Or broad, tight belts with jeweled buckles that emphasized my small waist. After a year or two of marriage, seeing me always dressed tastefully and with flair week after week, she began asking me for fashion advice. Which necklace or pullover did I think went with this outfit, or which jacket best matched that skirt, or did I think this blouse was too dress-down or that one too daring. She trusted me to make for her the most crucial of the decisions a woman confronts when dressing, which outfit is most appropriate for which kind of occasion. Whatever my advice, Emily always took it, and then always basked in compliments as other women admired her exquisite taste, her stylish chic. From this I divined that she could see that I myself dressed with stylish chic. Even early in our marriage, when my closet was small and my options limited. When she used me as a fashion consultant, it was always without acknowledging why, but I knew why. I loved it that she trusted my judgement. I loved it that she might be feeling a little deprived of the girlish chatter we might have been enjoying, about trends and looks and styles and local sales. But she did begin inviting me to go shopping with her, and that made up for some of it. I'd pretend to a man's bored indifference as I waited for her while she tried on different outfits in stores, meanwhile checking out outfits I might want to buy for myself. Then when she emerged from the dressing room, with a simple shake or nod of my head she'd reject or buy whatever she had on. She knew I knew. I especially treasure the time she had to take direct notice of a dress I was buying. We were shopping a department store super sale together. I'd picked up a pair of men's khakis and a soccer shirt for weekday use, then browsed the store for every imaginable kind of women's wear and collected an armful. By prearrangement we met at the register at a set time, and there we saw that without consulting we'd each selected exactly the same dress from out of the thousands we'd looked at. That coincidence testified to our compatability of taste, how similar our self-images as women. We were both sensible Talbot's or Lord and Taylor women, inclined toward classic styles, not given to boutique novelties or extravagant fads. We wore clothes, not 'costumes.' But this time Emily felt forced to tell me as we were leaving the store, as if woman to woman, "You won't wear your dress when I'm wearing mine, and I won't wear mine when I see you're wearing yours, all right honey?" I agreed readily enough, and gloated over that small implicit recognition for days. I was never sure when, but I thought that after a few years Emily grew casual about my appearance and actually began not seeing how I was dressed. Or perhaps her patience began to erode. Because now and then when I was fully dressed and made up even to my toenails, and the front door chimed for a delivery or a friend's visit, she'd call out from the kitchen or her study or the cellar where she was folding laundry, "Would you get it, please, honey? I'm busy!" This when she knew full well I was roaming the house in perhaps a stunning cocktail dress I'd just acquired from an upscale Next-to-New rummage, my hair up, my eyes bright with make-up, chandelier earrings dripping from both ears. Or she'd just seen me in heels, tight slacks, and a striped T-shirt making the most of my breastform boobs. I'd know she knew because a second later she'd brush past me to answer the door herself. Obviously she'd been in motion the whole time, and her call to me had been by way of imagining to herself for a moment that her husband was not weirdly dressed as if a woman, and could indeed answer the door respectably at any time. Or perhaps it was a way to rebuke me, to remind me that I was imprisoned, that I was holding myself incommunicado in my own house whenever I dressed like that, unfit to be seen. I could hear her unspoken message clearly enough. Why not just quit this nonsense? Live sensibly. Normally. Be respectable. Be a man! The fact is, she was right, I was a prisoner in my own house. As she arrived at the door to open it to some unexpected caller, I'd already be scurrying to an upper landing to hide, then pausing to hear who it was. Pausing until I could decide whether the caller would soon be gone and I could drift back down as I was, or whether I had to move quietly to my bedroom to scrub my face and change into proper drab male gear, then come down as if interrupted from customary deep thinking or a nap, to be seen without embarrassment. Not that they mattered to me, those times. Imprisonment in my own house was for me freedom to be all the woman I wished I could be. Nor did Emily really expect me to change my ways because of her passive-aggressive reminders that I inconvenienced her by making myself unable to answer the door. I'd study women's looks, behaviors, and moves during the week and practice them on weekends, and after years of seeing me improve in femininity beyond the merely passable, apparently not noticing, Emily knew my womanliness had achieved a steady state as skilled and persuasive as hers. She always hoped the desire would wane in time, I'm sure, yet in time she lost any real expectation of it. We live in hope for all sorts of things, yet settle for what we've got. Why not? ************ In all this time I'd not once stepped outside the house wearing make-up or a dress. Well, almost not once. No way imaginable could Emily ever bear the shame of such exposure, both of us being too well known around the neighborhood and among friends and co-workers, and Emily too dependent on peer respect to wish to be known to be married to the likes of me. The decent opinion of mankind was something she could not sacrifice even for me. As long as everyone thought we were unexceptional neighbors and law-abiding citizens and a sound, responsible couple, she left me to enjoy my inexplicable kink in a permissive moral vacuum. Even so, as every addict knows, there is always a temptation to try just a little more. I did on occasion skirt the outer edges of the letter of our agreement. Now and then, unknown to her, on weekends maybe even accompanied by her, I'd go shopping or to a movie while pretending that I was really a woman disguised as a man. I'd wear a bra and panties and sometimes a tight corset, pantyhose of course, maybe also my favorite Liz Claiborne jeans and Grasshopper sneaks that almost looked unisex. She never seemed to notice how nicely styled they were, how unmasculine their lines. Once, standing alone in a checkout line when I'd bought a few groceries, my hair recently curled and brushed back, I'd dropped a bottle of skin lotion and a woman behind called my attention to it by saying "Miss?" She apologized when I turned around to see what she wanted, though I assured her in my sweetly modulated girl's voice, accompanied by a delighted smile, that there was no problem, none at all. I'm not sure she ever decided which of the sexes I really belonged to. Once I went altogether over the edge by taking Emily to a movie while wearing a pale pink "natural" lipstick she'd never notice and just a stroke of black mascara on my lashes, having blow-dried my hair so it puffed all around to cover my ears and hide my forehead in a wisp of bangs. The girl in the ticket booth never looked up to see me, and people in the lobby looked at me or through me, so I have no idea which gender they thought me. I never thought to put my look to the test by trying to use the Ladies Room or the Men's Room either. Emily seemed not to notice, or if she did, she chose not to mention it. Another time, just once, I tried to make love to her on a Saturday night. I'd cooked up a fabulous dinner with aperitifs before, wine during, and cognac after, and we were both feeling a little tipsy. Emily had been delighted by my efforts, highly complimentary, and had honored the occasion by dressing formally in a long gown to match mine, our eyes darkly outlined, black, and our hair piled high. We'd both looked exceptionally beautiful by candle light, I'd thought, and I was feeling especially romantic. When we were finally in bed and the lights were out I'd reached for her purposively, my nightie rubbing against hers for the first time, our legs beginning to entangle. "If you make love to me tonight it'll have to be as a woman," she'd said to me quietly into the dark. "And then you'll never make love to me any other way. I can't let myself confuse you as my woman lover and yet also my man lover. If you make love to me now you'll live with your face between my legs and your hands on my breasts for as long as we're together. Maybe I'll let you use a dildo on me, but probably I'll need to use other men for real fucking. For all the use I'll ever make of your penis it might just as well shrink up and fall off right now. Is that what you want?" I pulled back immediately, and never again attempted love on a weekend while dressed. Nor could I ever again doubt that she knew how I was dressed. With me she was determined to be hetero or lesbian, not both, and never to confuse the two. But whatever she saw, she preferred not to let on. One Sunday I was dressed in tight clamdigger jeans and a pink stretch sweater, my bra and my tiny man-boobs poking out, when she came home from a Women's Club excursion to Toronto to see "Momma Mia." She looked at me and asked what I'd done all day, and I'd told her nothing, just gone to the movies. She'd looked again at me but said nothing, wondering no doubt if those were the clothes I'd worn when I'd gone to the movies. And if so, whether I'd worn a jacket to cover my girly chest. And what about those slacks, cut off to reveal the twist of a girl's slim ankle? She chose to say nothing. Maybe she guessed but knew there was no point in commenting on my risky behavior, my minor violations, once the risk had passed. Maybe she preferred to believe those weren't the clothes I'd worn when I went out. They needn't have been. Though sometimes they were. One Saturday I happened to be dressed casually in slacks, low-heeled pumps, a loose but lacy slipover, and as always gorgeous make-up -- perfect complexion and blush, black eyes, red lips -- when the front door chime sounded unexpectedly. I looked through the door's sidelight and saw no one we knew, only a young man about my age holding a clipboard. Emily was in the basement and I realized she hadn't heard anything. Why not answer this time? So I did. "Ma'am," the man said when he saw me. "I'm soliciting funds for the special Red Cross Drive you've probably heard about, to help the victims of...." "Oh, yes," I said in my lilting, flutey voice, my weekend voice except when answering the phone -- that caused confusion at the other end. "How lovely that you donate your time to go door to door!" "If you know of it, then there's no need for me to tell you how important...." "No, no need at all. Have you an envelope I can use to mail in a contribution? My husband and I don't like to ...well ...it's no reflection on you, but...." "I understand, ma'am. In fact we're not allowed to collect money directly. But I would appreciate it if you'd mail your contributiom today in this ...." "Thank you. I'm delighted to help!" And as I took the envelope from him I grazed my bright red fingernails across his knuckles, all the while gazing approval and admiration into his clear blue eyes. He gazed back with increasing appreciation. I could see the light of an idea take shape in his head and then take control. "Ma'am," he said. "It occurs to me that we ...." "Thank you again, kind sir," I said with a faint curtsey. "But I need to get back to my day's work now." And I gently closed the door on him and on the pretty personal invitation he'd obviously intended to deliver. And turned away in delight, triumphant, my heart pounding. I'd been an actual girl in the eyes of someone else, someone who looked, saw, and approved of what he saw, and had actually begun to make a pass! I felt exhilerated, authentic as never before! "Well!" Emily's voice said behind me. "'My husband and I'? 'How lovely'? 'Kind sir'? Did you manage to slip him your phone number too?" Her voice was tart. "Emily! You didn't answer, so I .... I saw it was only a charity drive, and I couldn't scurry out of these clothes, so I figured...." For the first time she looked at me as only women ever look at each other, carefully and critically, head to toe. There was no question this time that she saw me. From my curled hairstyle past my faintly bulging boobs to my tight-in-the-rear slacks to to my low-heeled pumps. "Why the heavy make-up?" she asked me. "Did you see him down the street and rush to prepare to make a pass at him before he got here? Why those intimate bedroom eyes?" "Emily, I was wearing all this when ..." "It worked, too. I saw it all. I thought we had an agreement. You don't show yourself to anyone, and I don't complain about the way you dress at home. But now you've not only let yourself be seen dressed like ... like that, you've enjoyed it! Obviously. Just now as you closed the door you were positively exulting. Gloating. Did you enjoy it?" She had me. "Yes, I did." There was no point in denying it. "A lot?" "Yes." "You like attracting a man?" "No. I like feeling like an attractive woman." "I see." And she said nothing further, and I was more than eager to let the whole subject pass. I didn't want to imagine what she was thinking. ************ A few weeks later an event occurred that changed our lives altogether. As Emily had hoped for months but had not dared believe possible, she was called in by top management and told that national headquarters in Albuquerque, New Mexico, had asked for her. They'd been increasingly impressed by her work, her reports, her administrative accomplishments, and now they wanted her to move there. She'd get a big promotion -- she'd be Vice President for Financial Affairs for the whole company, with a huge salary increase and other expectations commensurate. Such as a bonus, all moving expenses, the reimbursed cost of whatever house she chose to buy, a country club membership, and entry into the town's highest social echelons. She'd be on a fast track to the very top. I was delighted for her. As always she thought through the implications carefully, though I knew that eventually she'd say 'yes.' My career offered no obstacle to a move. My talents were well-known, I had more work than I cared to handle, and I could work anywhere. Then too, better a move now, with no kids to uproot from schools and friends, than later when roots in the community had grown deep. So I was supportive as she considered systematically the different personal problems and career implications, and finally decided to accept the offer as stated. It was simply too great an an honor, too great an opportunity to throw away. She flew off to Albuquerque to spend two weeks consulting with people she'd be working with and buying a house for us to live in, then unexpectedly she decided to stay an additional week. She phoned now and then, sometimes eager to share the events of the day with me, sometimes only cursorily, distracted, just touching base. It was the longest time we'd been apart. We told each other that we missed each other. I didn't exactly keep to our agreement while she was gone. I curled my hair one weekday evening and put on full light facial makeup, though a man's pants and shirt to hide my panties and bra, nearly hide my bra, and I went to the Mall to buy some women's running shoes and a set of loose yet nicely-styled women's sweats. I hoped they'd seem androgynous enough to Emily for me to wear during the week, though when I got them home I saw there was no way. They were loose but nevertheless they looked cute, sassy, somehow pixieish. Very feminine, overall. I loved them. They weren't for wearing weekdays, but I wore them that week anyhow. The second week I dressed several times as if I were an office girl going to a job downtown, then went to my job in my study. The third week I spent being a girl, changing skirts or dresses every few hours, day after day, altogether entranced by my femininity and delighted by the opportunity to display it. I took chances. I wore my hair everywhere as Prissy'd arranged it, softly feminine, and I wore eyeshadow to the supermarket even when dressed as a man. One deliciously wicked evening I ordered pizza in, then put on a miniskirt and sultry make-up to receive the delivery boy. I actually saw a bulge grow in his crotch as he stood there and I pretended to fumble in one of Emily's purses for the money I'd placed there earlier. It made my whole evening! Letting myself be glimpsed or seen looking like a woman somehow seemed more honest than hiding inside my own clothes.. Finally Emily returned. She was enthusiastic about the work, especially about the people -- she'd been wined and dined the whole time, she'd played tennis with other executives, and at their wives urging she'd danced at the Club with some of the more courtly, older Vice Presidents. With some of the younger ones too, she made clear, thinking perhaps that if I understood there was competition down there I'd abandon my transvestism and be a man. She was the youngest Vice-President they'd ever appointed, and everyone flattered her. She'd gone house-hunting and loved the one she'd selected for the company to purchase for her, loved the neighborhood, and loved the opportunities now opening for rich social lives. For both of us. As she said that last, she looked momentarily thoughtful, but didn't explain why. Why emerged a few days later. "Cary," she said the following Sunday evening, when we were seated comfortably in our living room having a pre-dinner drink. "We need to talk." I was wearing one of my better dresses, a rather decollete black silk with a single strand of pearls and pearl drop clasp earrings. Just two days earlier I'd wondered whether to risk getting a full body wax to save myself all that Saturday morning shaving and had done it, and wondered as well whether pierced ears would violate our agreement and decided reluctantly that they would. Even so, I looked very nice and knew it, fit for cocktails and dinner anywhere. My black hosiery and simple black high-heeled pumps were perfect accompaniments. I felt 'together' -- every woman knows what I mean. She saw she had my attention. "That's an especially lovely dress," she said. "And I've always envied you those earrings whenever you've worn them. You really did miss dressing nicely for me while I was away these past few weeks, didn't you?" Dumbfounded! What was she saying?! Mentioning my women's clothes? She knew that I always dressed to impress her even though officially she never seemed to notice? Did I hear her correctly? "Yes, I did," was all I could reply. Should I also confess that despite our agreement I'd dressed for myself during the week? And for a pizza delivery boy? No. "You do know how I feel about this habit of yours." "I certainly do, Emily," I said. I had heard her. "And I respect your feelings. You know that." Now I became distinctly uneasy. This was the first time since our marriage that Emily had deliberately mentioned my dress, or my earrings, or 'this habit.' Everything was supposed to be invisible to her. But now? Was she going to forbid me any further dressing when we moved to her new location? Being higher up in the managerial chain, was she feeling more vulnerable to scandal because of my 'habit'? She must be! If she forbade me any further cross-dressing, could I possibly comply? Was she about to tell me that she's going to Albuquerque but I'm not invited? "I know you do, sweetheart. Do you have a topcoat to go with the outfit you're wearing? We're dining out tonight. I have a proposal to put to you." Even more astonished! "No, Emily, I don't have any women's outdoor clothes." That much was true. "Then take my short grey cape from the front hall closet. It'll match your dress well enough. And then let's go." Dazed, almost altogether dulled down, I did so. And stepped outside for the first time while wearing a dress and full make-up, and scanned the neighborhood. No one was watching. I sat neatly down on the passenger side of the car and swung my legs in together, as women do. No purse, no driver's license. She drove us to that same little bistro where she'd first accepted my marriage proposal and set the conditions we'd lived by these past five years. That seemed auspicious. But maybe she was seeking closure, an end to the marriage we'd begun five years earlier? I stared straight ahead, knees tight together, speechless. We arrived. For the first time dressed as a woman, I stepped out of the car with my high-heeled pumps clicking on the pavement and my black dress swirling against my legs, and entered the restaurant behind Emily and the headwaiter, walking as gracefully as I could to a table near the one that had first authorized our marriage. When we were seated and the waiter had taken our orders for drinks, Emily spoke. "Honey, I've been watching your every move. You're perfect. We're here because I wanted to be sure I knew what kind of a lady you are when you're out and about, not just being a lady at home. And now I know the answer. A gracious and lovely lady. You're altogether persuasive, no one would dream that you're not quite what you seem. I know your little heart must be going pitty-pat right now, but you really have nothing to fear. All of your years of studying and imitating how women move and talk and dress have paid off, and all in this one evening. I see that I can proceed with you as I'd hoped." "Thank you, Emily," I said to her in my flute-voice, wide-eyed because that was my typical feminine facial expression, and also because I was still amazed, bewildered by what was happening. "Here is where we reached our first agreement, so it seems only appropriate that here is where we should reach another rather differenmt one. Now listen closely. Both of you, the man I married and the woman he becomes on weekends. I've waited until tonight to say it because I want her attention as well as yours, Cary. Or his attention but especially yours, Carrie. You are 'Carrie' when you're being a woman, aren't you? You see, I'm not sure how to say this." I straightened my legs and sat upright, tense. Here it comes, I thought unhappily. The end of my joy. The end of my beautiful weekends. The end of my marriage? If it came to it could I give this wonderful thing up? I could try. I would try! But I've talked about it on the Net with so many others who've tried and failed repeatedly. I'd fail! It never works. If that was what she was about to ask me to do, give up pretending I'm a woman, I was in despair! "I've been thinking about all this, and I'm now sure that I've been terribly unfair to you, that I should never have restricted your womanliness, what you once called the girl inside you. Unfair to both of you and to both of us. I know it's been difficult for you. I've seen how you push the edge of our agreement, how you sometimes go out in almost girls' clothes or almost boys' clothes and hope no one will notice. Well, I do notice, even though I've never mentioned it. It's your thing and I haven't wanted to expand discussion of it into our relationship." "I see," I said as gently as I could. "Others have noticed too, of course. They tell me what they've seen, and tell me that out of respect for me they've never made it common gossip. You often wear light make-up and androgynous clothing at the supermarket, looking more feminine than masculine. And at Balley's you've been seen buying yourself undergarments, and at Victoria's Secret too. For example, that dress you've got on now. Maggie saw you buy it at Towson's last year and thought it just darling, she admired your taste, and she also thought it was darling of you to want to buy a dress for me. Then she asked me once why she never sees me wearing it. I didn't know what she meant at first, so I had to back and fill, so she wouldn't think you'd bought it for someone else you were seeing on the side. That you were that someone else." She's softening the blow. Oh, God! Now she means to leave me so as not to be "unfair" to my habit. I've lost her! Panic began to overcome my sense of dread. Terror! "It's a lovely dress. An Anne Klein, isn't it? I love basic blacks with scoop necks and long sleeves like that one. I almost wish I'd been with you when you bought it, so I could have gotten something similar for myself. I may want to borrow it some time, it would look perfect with my mauve pashmina, don't you think? You wouldn't mind, would you? It does look really stunning on you. I've admired it for months." What? Now I was numb. "No, I wouldn't mind," I managed to croak. "You're welcome to anything in my wardrobe, honey." Was I trying to bribe her into keeping me as a husband? "Cary, I can't deprive you any longer. When we move to New Mexico, I think our agreement should end. I don't think you should come with me. I don't think we can move into our new lives there living as we've lived here." My stomach sank into my shoes! I couldn't breathe! It's over! Oh, God! Emily! I've lost you! No! I'll change! But I knew I couldn't. I couldn't even say it. This was the end! "I won't hold you back any more this way. I know how much this transvestism of yours means to you." I was devastated. Just to stay sane I quickly invented and recited the rest of her speech silently to myself. 'And that's why, Cary, that's why I think you'll find you'll be much happier if you look for more suitable marital opportunities elsewhere. We're reducing personnel and so much as I regret it, we have to let you go. I think you'll find in the long run this is all for your own good. Just turn over your files, and collect what we owe you from payroll, and clear your desk, and be out of here by five. It's been a fine relationship in many ways, Cary, advantageous for both of us, and I regret it, but I'm afraid our marriage has to be terminated. You're redundant. Downsized. Fired. Obliterated. I'm finished with you! Goodbye!' "Cary," Emily was actually saying. "I think it would be a lot neater, a lot cozier, a lot less risky, and a lot more respectable, if we showed up at our new house in Albuquerque, in our new neighborhood, simply as two women. Two women who are beyond question women. Not as a husband and wife who happen to look like two women on weekends, but as two authentic, full-time women. Authentic as far as anyone can tell." What?! "I've had to think this thing through. I thought at first that maybe we could go down there as two girlfriends, but since we'll be living together that would raise lesbian issues. So it will be better I think if we're related to each other. If we're sisters-in-law. We'll let Cary be a man who's travelling somewhere else on business when we arrive. You can be his sister Carrie, come to help me move in and keep me company in his absence. That is your usual other name when you're on the computer with your transgendered friends, I remember. Carrie. We can be two women together. When we arrive you'll be a woman full time, and you'll